Thursday, January 19, 2006
Survey Project
1) What is the picture about?
2) Does it remind you of something you’ve seen or experienced before?
3) What would you change about it?
So I preceded to show people a work print that was flawed at the negative level and the print level but still strong as an image. I wanted to draw blood. I wanted to see how nice my friends were. A clean print would have been too easy and the answers, generally predictable. I wanted to elicit strongvaried respomses.
I asked friends, family and a bunch of folks on toycamera.com. I got to hear from relative experts, and "just plain folks".
Here it is:
These are the responses I got. They end with a brief note to Babs about the assignment and what I learned about myself.
Mattia - Photographer
1) Complete loneliness and decay.
2) No.
3) I would have centered the tree.
Chris - Photographer
1) Loneliness and desolation.
2) Sure. Both feelings I've experienced and pictures I've made. I find my work deals quite often with themes of isolation, desolation, etc.
3) That's the hard part. I'm not sure how to approach this question without more thought, and not sure I SHOULD approach it. As a teacher myself, I'm wary of telling my students how I would have done something...instead I try to help them ask questions and make decisions that lead them in a productive direction, and help them make the images they want/need to make. But I suspect that's not the kind of answer you were looking for. I'll say this much: I very well might have made this image, but I likely wouldn't show it. It seems a bit lacking to me...an investigation or preliminary step, rather than a final statement. But isn't that what our work is... a process of investigation?
Laura - Photographer
1) Coastal erosion.
2) Reminds me of Louisiana swamps, but since it is such a lone figure, i would say the last remaining tree in the swamp. It seems very lonely.
3) I would make the sky a bit more dramatic with looming storm clouds BUT if you are just talking about the photo, right here, right now, I would use a higher filter and to kick the contrast up a notch, print is a little flat to me.
Tammy - Photographer
1) Well, it gives me a feeling of removal or isolation, and a reaching out to something- maybe reaching for freedom. Being left out...
2) Yes- but I can't put my finger on it. Post nuclear winter maybe read about in a sci-fi book.
3) In a sense of this very composition, I would pump up the contrast considerably; it would make a stronger presentation, but would maybe change the coldness that I feel about it.
Dennis - Entrepreneur
1) These type of photos to me ask "Not what I see...but, what does the photographer see"...and therein lies the problem as I will never know what he saw......but then again, I can guess and that is what makes the picture last and go on and on...........
2) I am getting old....................
3) Nothing..............this is an absolutely great picture.............how can I possible change something someone else sees...especially when I am still guessing on what they saw...............................!!!!!!
Paul - Psychologist
1) The erosion of time. The beach used to be 3-4 ft higher, and the base of the tree is bleached and gray and you could tell it had been sitting out there for a while.
2) It is indigenous to this area, esp. since the hurricanes. Also, the beaches are ever changing or decaying, whichever way you want to look at it.
3) There's nothing you can do, it's just time gone by.
Julia – Application Developer
1) I would guess the picture is about desolation. The dead trees and the empty landscape seem sad and empty.
2) It reminds me of this spot on the beach at Jekyll Island. It’s just sand and driftwood. The day I was there the ocean was really still. It looked just like that.
3) I can’t say what I would change about it but the border not being clean kind of helps the image. It adds to that feeling of being forgotten. When you display it I’d try to keep some of that roughness about the photo itself.
Will – Network Manager
1) Desolation.
2) Yes, I grew up in Chipley so I am very familiar with desolation.
3) I would have cropped it differently but then again I am not an art major so it would have been wrong. Plus, the way I would have cropped it would have lost whatever shoreline is in the picture and that would have been a shame.
Julie – Art Collector
1) Death (starkness and slight eeriness to the image) I am also struck by the beauty of nature’s forms, balance… it is a very quiet image.
2) Yes.
3) I have seen many photographs of this type, making use of natural material, particularly the dead trees.
Pola – Poet
1) Desolation. Aloneness. The beauty of being who you are. Nature's beauty, and even the beauty of it's ravages.
2) I have a beautiful little girl dog who has knobby knees that remind me of the knobby joints of this tree. I love this dog. My love for this dog makes me feel kindly towards this tree.
3) I would change nothing about this picture itself. However, it would be interesting to do a study of this scene at different times of year, different seasons, different weather... or even different times of day. Like afternoon versus night versus twilight versus daybreak. That would be very interesting.
Mike – Canadian
1) A very wise old tree playing his keyboard on the edge of a lake. He is alone and basks in his solitude.
2) Sitting on the edge of a lake, alone, solitude, time to reflect and think.
3) I would change my composition a degree to the left to oust the little bush baby on the bottom right, and get down a bit closer to the ground to get more of the creepy stumps in the foreground.
Becky – Photographer
1) Low tide, waiting, being alone, but not lonely.
2) It makes me appreciate being someplace that is not spoiled with commerce or overpopulated.
3) Maybe shoot it vertical.
Kent – Photographer
I like the low horizon - offset composition.
1) What's it about? The fragile quality of life on the edge, in this case, edge of the sea.
2) What does it remind me of? The aftermath of a storm, not necessarily Katrina, any storm.
3) What would I change? If I could change anything, I'd try for a more dramatic sky, strong clouds, or maybe seagulls. If I couldn't change anything, I'd be satisfied with this and look for something different. This is a story that's been told before. I like it, but I've heard it.
Tinker – Art Teacher
1) Fantasy shapes
2) Shore of mono lake; paintings by surrealist painter yves tanguy
3) No
Bill – Photography Teacher
I'm sitting here preparing to teach my photo 1 class this evening, but what the heck... I'll help bail you out.
1) Loneliness, isolation, a little angst.
2) Heck, yes. It reminds me of part of the Florida Everglades.
3) For one, the crappy processing. Composition is OK. Perhaps it needs a little more air at the top of the frame.
Dave – Photographer
1) The picture is about quiet. That is why I think it is some of the best work you have done. It is very peaceful. It is about nothing. It is balanced like Zen. When did you become a Zen photographer.
2) It reminds me of South Georgia, a fishing pond. I don't know why because they don't look the same, but they sound the same. Why is this picture about sounds?
3) Here is what I wouldn't change. I wouldn't change the edges. I wouldn't crop it. Here is what I would change. I would change the fact that my friend doesn't have an 11x17ish print of this.
Mark – Server Manager
1) A dying lake.
2) When they drained Lake Talquin when I was a kid. There were cypress trees and stumps exposed.
3) Nothing, I think it’s a cool picture.
Footnote:
I’m not sure what this means but it occurs to me that my first impulse with this assignment was to produce a document. I chose words. That fella with the video camera and the A-Team question, as a visual artist, chose to make pictures. Now it could be a matter of training or that this is an assignment and my student brain is wired for that. Or it could be something deeper. It’s funny but the Creative Writing degree at FSU has the student doing very little creative writing. Mostly it’s survey courses which one could argue was necessary. Learn what you’re rebelling against. Know your history. Don’t repeat it. I’ve done that on my own. I live in books, in thought and dreams. I think art seems more like a doing degree. You spend the two years or so that you have making things. Both of my great-Grandmothers were painters. So was my Grandmother. So was my own Mom. My brother is a grade-A air force douche bag and my sister is an Army wife but in the worst way. There is this familial linage of creation that belongs to me and I to it. We both know my limitations as an artist. I know that shoot like a writer but for the next few years I want to forget that. I’m still writing but I reckon I’m writing better these days. It’s like having a second person in me who sees things instead of hearing them.
