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Photography
SENIOR PROJECTS 2013
Contents Note from the Instructor • In order of appearance Lara Agulian Morgan Anderson Tito Burbano Pui Ki Chan Ho Ting Cheung Ryan Cosentino-Roush Lauren Coyne Patricia Dorantes Jodi Driscoll Monique Henderson Clara Jimenez China Langford Candace Mann Alexander Nguyen Clifford Nichols Patricia Perez Bethany Ruiz Henry Sumpter Tomothy Williams • front cover Ryan Cosentino-Rousch back cover China Langford
Note from the instructor Photography 197, Senior Projects in Photography is a capstone class. The semester is devoted to each student building a cohesive single body of work. This can have either a fine art or commercial bias, whichever best serves a students goals. In my role as instructor for this class and organizer of this book, I do not censor or otherwise select work. The work presented within these pages has been culled from the students efforts and represents their best foot forward. Teaching a class, such as this, is an act of faith. Faith that a student will engage and bring their A-game. Faith that the structure I put in place for the discussion and development of a students work will bear fruit in the form of artistic progress. Art and craft are both organic in nature. They benefit from practice, failure and mistakes leading to new ways of thinking and fertile areas of artistic exploration. Being part of this process is one the most rewarding aspects of teaching. On a more technical note. Each student contributing to this book created there own page layout and design. This represents a departure from previous semesters books. ~Keay Edwards
“The best advice I could possibly give you, and forgive me if this seems glib, is to work. Work. Work. Work. Every day. At the same time every day. For as long as you can take it every day, work, work, work. Understand? Talent is for shit. I’ve taught school for nearly thirty years and never met a student who did not have some talent. It is as common as house dust or kudzu vine in Alabama and is just about as valuable. Nothing is as valuable as the habit of work, and work has to become a habit. “ ~Barry Moser
PUI KI CHAN
Chinese & Western Living in California, you will meet people who come from different countries, and you will be aware of the cultural differences among them. I am the photographer, Peggy CHAN, a Chinese who grew up in Hong Kong, the place that was previously governed by the British. I have a drive to show the different perceptions and beliefs put into daily life, specifically between American and Chinese. The significant steps of life such as birthdays, weddings, and important festivals, as well as the perception of white, red and dark colors are the prominent differences between the Chinese and Americans. A series of images has been taken, in order to let the audiences visualize the different perceptions of fortune, good and bad luck, and the meaning of blessings, which is different between American and Chinese cultures. In western culture, red indicates hot and spicy; aggressive and the devil, while white indicates peace, purity, holy saints and heaven. In Chinese culture, red indicates fortunate, blessing of good luck, while white indicates death and spirits. With such cultural differences, western people wear white gowns or dresses for church, weddings and important ceremonies. For Chinese, utensils, cloths and food are strained into red for all celebrations, including birthdays and marriages, but use black or blue calligraphy painting on white and white dress to express the sorrow of death. Red colored thing are forbidden tduring mourning! Western culture believes that death leads to peace and joy possibly in the heavens, while Chinese fear death and spirits. I hope that through these photographs, audiences may know more about Chinese culture, so that misunderstandings can be minimized and harmony between cultures can be enhanced.
DECEPTION
l l Jodii Driscoll o c s i r D d o J
To me, being a photographer is about capturing or creating a moment in time . It is also about telling a story, evoking a feeling, or stating a message. Photographs can be used in everyday moments, news, tabloinds ,and more. Like the saying goes “there are two sides to evry story. Are the photos we see reavealing the truth or hiding it? A way a photographer frames the photograph makes a difference on how the audience perceives it. It becomes misguiding when valuable information in left out of the photograph. It is a strategic skill of lies and tricks which the audience has to decipherr to see the truth or take it as it is. As a photgrapher, I believe deceptin is a craft in photgraphy. it can become a challenge to accomplish this act of trickery with a camera. It is all about the angles, framing, lighting, and vies. My work DECEPTION has a lot to do with all four. I played with every angle, zooming in and out, controlling the amount of light coming in, and photographingfrom all possible viewpoint. Zooming in a little closer can make all the diference on how the audience can perceive the photograph. To illustrate, I have displayed my pieces of work with their counter parts.. For every photograph taken through my perspective another is to follow to show what was left out. Leaving one thing out can turn beauty in to grotesque or hoyful into tragic. As an artist I value this strategy in my photographs to grab the viewer’s attention and allow them to question what the piece is really about. I want to demostrate how easily photographs can deceive, without one’s knowlege. There is deception that manipulates and deception that entertains. It is always good to question and realize that what is not photographed plays an important part in the work. I not only visualize what is in the camera frame, but what I do not have in the frame. It may be what is in the photograph that catches your eye, but what is not revealed in the photograph should make you think.
Clara E. Jimenez
My name is Clara. I was raised here in San Jose, California in a very small and traditional Mexican family. I was raised to strive for what I love and love what I do... and to be honest when I hold a camera, I am 100% sure I found it. I fell in love with photography in 2005. Just like any other High School student I was forced to take an art elective. I had already taken studio art so all that was left was Photography. To my luck I fell madly in love with the medium and was fortunate enough to have an amazing mentor to guide me and inspire me with her own work. I had a hard time convincing my family to let me study Photography. They wished I studied to become a doctor or a lawyer. But, I insisted that I had found photography and now all I wanted to do was to see the world through my camera lens. Today, I am soon to graduate from San Jose State University and begin a career doing what I love... shooting, creating, and inspiring. Photography is my passion and as long as I can I will continue to do it.
As a photographer, portraiture is something that I have always been attracted to. I find portraits much more interesting and dynamic than landscapes and still life photography. The powerful emotions that can be seen in the facial expressions of people have a strong capability to captivate an audience, and it is this aspect that draws me to portraiture. However, through this project, I am not so much trying to capture emotion as I am trying to bring attention to the texture of a person’s skin. Much like no two fingerprints are the same, each person has a unique texture. It is through the use of the High Dynamic Range Process (HDR) that I am able to really show the texture in the faces of my models. Because of the differences in their skin, the prints all have a different textural quality to them that in turn, make each photograph unique in-spite of the uniformity of this particular body of work. Before this project, I had never created HDR photographs, and I really enjoyed the process of making each image and learning what the process entails to finish each print.
“The Lives and Faith of a Temple”
Monk Leaving Refrigerator
Monks Preparing for Lunch
Monk Eating Lunch
Mother and Child During Meal Prayer
Monk Preparing Food for After Mass Lunch
Mother and Son in Meditation Hall
Women Reading During Prayer
Men Praying During Sunday Service
Woman in Mediation Hall
Out With The Old Gelatin Silver Print
PEREZ PATRICIA
I am interested in Architectural photography. Architecture is a form of art that often goes unnoticed. My photographs are from New York and San Francisco. My images are meant to capture texture, lines and patterns of the cities concrete walls . People rush throughout the busy city and never stop to see how the city generates many unusual and interesting elements that rarely catch the attention of the human eye. II use my camera as a means to bring awarness and appreciation to the connection between art and architecture. By sharing my images I hope to inspire viewers to pay greater attention to the uniqueness of a city.
About Me
My name is Steven Prudencio. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA and moved to the bay area to pursue a degree in photography. Photography has always been a passion of mine. When I was in high school I would always carry around a disposable camera at all times and snap away when something cought my attention. Being able to catch the world through my eyes and sharing that vision with others has always been the reason why I’ve always caried around a camera. Throughout my years working on my degree, I developed a passaion for fashion and anything retro-urban and not too long after that I knew that one day I’d love to work in the fashion industry.
About This Piece Fashion is the continued growth of different styles and the manifestation of trends. For me, fashion is a world of evolution, it continues to change while sometimes crossing boundaries that people never knew existed. I love fashion, especially because of the influence it has on everyones own style and how it can be manipulated by individual personifications. In the eyes of any given person, style and fashion are what we make of it. A college campus is a perfect exhibit of fashion. Everyday, students prepare themselves for class while never fully understanding why they choose that particular outfit. Some say emotions are what drive their inspiration for day-to-day dress while others say that the urge to stand out is their fuel and motivation. In any case, styles run rampant on the college campus. As a student, I find myself paying more and more attention each day to what others are wearing on their way to class. I find it to be fascinating what my fellow students wear just for class. That in itself was the main inspiration for this series.
bethany ruiz
no hope, no home
Lincoln’s Last Shot I grew up in a conservative household; I went to church, read my bible, and studied the history of the United States. I remember where I was on 9/11 and the burst of patriotism that flourished throughout my hometown along with the importance of taking a stand against evil. I watched how, on my birthday, troops marched into Iraq defending “freedom”. I listened to newscast as they talked about weapons of mass destruction and supported friends and family who enlisted. I remember the tears cried when three friends from my hometown, lost their lives. I remember seeing the country take a turn from patriotism to protesting the war, no longer in agreement with one another. I watched as bad things started happening to the economy when friends and family around me started losing jobs, or their homes. I sat among many as we hoped for change; when all we witnessed was more and more debt added to our future. I witnessed as more countries attacked others based on being our allies or God’s. I lobbied for children in foreign countries who were forced to become child soldiers, killing anyone who crossed their path. All the while, trying to gain an education, work full time, and strive toward a brighter future. I watched as my debt climbed higher and higher, wondering if $50,000 was really worth the degree I got... in Art. I ask myself, will it all be worth it? Is this the America that I have to live with? A place where we can’t be proud to be from anymore? A country gone up in flames? Using the chromoskedasic sabatier process in the darkroom, this project is the self-expressive and growing concern over my future in America.
Lady Liberty
Brooklyn Bridge
Cheers to That
Brooklyn Car
Grand Central Flag
Chicken Pot Pie
Tower
Guarding the Cross
Brooklyn Bench
Not the Liberty Bell
Standing at the Cross
Streets of Boston
Burning Oyster House
Water Tower
HENRY SUMPTER The study of life leads one to infinite suggestions about the workings of the world. One could study animal life, but I am fascinated by plant life. As a student of photography and an artist, I must assess the encyclopedia of symbols that has been employed in visual art. The typical image of a tree represents life in a way that has done anything but arrived naturally at its shape. The long trunk that explodes into a ball of branches and leafs has been pruned, any suckers cut back from the rootstock. If a tree symbolizes life, the extreme manicure it has undergone connotes life as we would like it. (Perhaps the tree is meant also to convey harmony between the extremes of up and down, symmetry, goodness, or a necessary antithesis of what is seen and unseen.) The result of 5 years spent learning about and manipulating plants has made the image of a tree utterly unbelievable because my understanding now is that a tree taking that shape is entirely unnatural. It is my feeling that unless young trees and plants have been trained for transplantation in a greenhouse (which implies the practice of
landscaping), you will not see picture-perfect specimens of them in the outdoors. I want to create a new image of plants as a testament to their survival strategies. My images depict plant specimens as a whole, which practically necessitates uprooting each one. Further, beautiful trees are not the only plants doing our environment the service of recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. As my subject I have chosen weeds, which perform all of the environmentally-beneficial acts we associate with trees. Uprooting and therefore effectively killing the plant, in this case, is acceptable where both landscaping and the use of RoundUp to kill weeds are widespread. Though I have not sought out weeds whose structure appeals to the eye, their discovery has been inevitable. The image of a thing that has survived against our best efforts to eradicate it might inspire feelings of repulsion. Nevertheless, my images of these plants seeks to document their success in the face of our best efforts to eradicate them.
Timothy Williams
PIC For this body of work I wanted to explore more about people, more specifically I wanted to work with the homeless and document them not as a “thing” but as a person. People are very interesting in my eyes and such everyone is important because they are people too. They need and want just like everyone else and as such they ask for help, money, or entertain people as they walk by wither by playing music, drawing or dressing up and acting. Originally I just wanted to document the homeless of San Jose, but as I continued to talk to them and get to know them, little by little I wanted to explore more and more. As such I soon travelled to San Francisco and met more and more people. I travelled to the Berryessa Flea Market and met more people. However not everyone was willing to talk to me nor were they fully comfortable having their pictures taken and I respected their wishes. By showing this body of work I hopefully show these people not as ‘homeless’ but as people trying to get by in life, just like us.
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Back Cover