time and space by Rylie Bicknell
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table of contents initial concepts
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test collages
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refined drafts 18 final process 22 reflections
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project description Time and Space is a photo collage project focused around the manipulation of its title, time and space. For this project I chose a location and subject where I could compress, extend, or alter time and space. The photo guidelines required 75+ 4x6in photos printed and mounted onto a board. We referenced David Hockney’s work in the beginning of this project and found our direction from there. I chose to represent my mom and my sister in my final composition.
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initial locations and concepts 7
Downtown Lawrence
One of my initial concepts was to take photos of two people interacting and incorporate all the different types of walls around downtown Lawrence into the background. I wanted the final collage to be an organic shape and to look as though the walls were changing behind the people interacting.
Art Center
For this photo concept I thought of manipulating space over time in the Lawrence Arts Center. My church meets in the center and I thought it would be interesting to see the transformation of all the different things that happen on the Lawrence Art Center’s stage.
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Home
I previously photographed my sister and mother in another photo project and wanted to combine the two into a series that showed generation over time. I wanted to focus on the good and bad aspects that are passed on from mother to daughter.
My porch
I thought that it would be interesting to photograph my roommates hanging out on our porch at different times in the day. I wanted the final collage to form an organic shape and to see the same people in the same clothes from morning to night.
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test collages 13
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two refined drafts 19
Linda is a folk street musician I met on Mass Street. She told me she used to be a masseuse, but is now reinventing herself as a folk artist. In this piece I portrayed her funky personality and space from multiple perspectives.
I went home to photograph my mom and my sister as they conversed on the porch. I captured their conversation while implementing generational traits that have been passed through time with black and white images.
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final process 23
In the final round of my project I printed out 400 hundred photos. I began with 1,700 photos and managed to reduced them, but I still didn’t want to take the chance of not having a connecting photo that I needed. Once they were printed I sorted them by type. The photos of my sister and my mother were arranged by body part and then their connecting pieces were in there own folder. I organized my black and white photos and background images as well. Ths helped me piece them together when I started collaging.
Since I had a rough draft version of my project I began working from that. I layed everything out on my living room floor so I would have enough space to collage the photos. I layed the photos on top of each other before taping them together. Once I had the photos of my mom and sister conversing outside, I moved towards the black and white images behind them. After I taped all of the images together I mounted them to the board, which was three different pieces. I taped the boards together after taping the photos, which wasn’t the best idea.
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the conversation Through these photos I aim to convey the brighter and darker aspects of life that are passed on through generation.
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reflections 29
a viewer’s guide The description of the photograph is more important than all the other elements. Your description shouldn’t carry adjectives and you shouldn’t sound definite on things you are actually unsure of. You should approach the picture as if everything in it is there for a reason and that its all important. Don’t overlook any details when describing what’s happening in the photo. After describing the factual experience of a photograph the viewer then makes a formal analysis which is a more objective experience. The interpretation of the analysis is to talk about what the photograph says. It can having meaning, be a metaphor, evoke feelings or state something. This process of formal analysis is the same process that is used for paintings. In Art History we wrote a formal analysis on a piece and a lot of the vocab discussed in this reading was used. I think it’s so easy to forget that photography is art now that its available on our phones and that everyone has become a photographer on Instagram. I really connected with the aspect of photography being art because I forget. I learned photography through journalism and when I took PHMD 101 last year it was hard for me to adapt to the artistic approach rather than the photojournalism approach.
on photography Photography gives us a sense that we can hold the whole world in our hand. It seems like almost everything has been photographed at this point, but when you collect photos you are able to collect the world. Photographs capture an experience. Each photograph acts as a piece of the world and a miniature reality. Photographs capture reality but are still just as much an interpretation as a painting or drawing. The photographer imposes standards and takes photos until it looks “just right.” The point that really stuck out to me in this reading was that photography is as much an interpretation as a painting or drawing. People always view photographs as fact, as things that happened exactly how they’re depicted. I think I did too for the most part until I took the photography course last year. Coming from photojournalism, that seemed crazy to me. I slowly learned photography as an art and now I see the manipulation behind the photographs to portray the message the artists wants to give, much like in a painting. A painter makes test sketches and a photographer takes photos until he or she gets it right. A painter places is figures with care just like a photographer would. It is easier for me to understand the art behind photography now.
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photography changes everything Photography is unruly and hard to define, however we need, use, and respond to it all the time. There is constant demand for photography and people take pictures everywhere as they experience the world. Whether a photo is good, beautiful, or effective is subjective to the viewer. Camera sales are up and camera phones are on the rise. We’re all photographers now and the number of images we create has increased substantially. Our relationship with photography is changing and we’re living in it as it does. Instagram has changed photography and now everyone thinks they’re a photographer. Photography changes what we want and I think that’s also evident with Instagram. People see other people’s photos and want what they have. It influences what we do in the same way. It fuels our curiosity and desire to experience things we see. It influences where we travel and the things we try. It controls our memory as well. There are many things of my childhood that I’m not sure if I actually remember them, or if I just remember photographs. Without photographs things would be forgotten.
masters of illusion Special effects in movies come from similar tactics of artists of the Renaissance and focus on illusion. The renaissance began in Italy. Linear perspective opened up a new world for Renaissance artists. They applied techniques of light and shadow to create illusion as well and played with anamorphic technique. Renaissance artists implemented point of view to create illusionary drama. The special effects in movies always catch my attention and its hard to imagine that that type of progressive and innovative technology originated form tactics used in the Renaissance. Everything builds on itself on technology is no different. Although they made this point early on in the film, I didn’t think there were enough clear connections between the two. These Renaissance painters were extremely smart and created things that today we use technology for. The way they used illusion was revolutionary during their time. I found the anamorphic art to be extremely fascinating. I had never seen it before, or at least known it was called that. They made a clear comparison of point of view between paintings and films.
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ways of seeing A large part of seeing is based on habit. Perspective centers everything on the eye of the beholder. Because of the camera we could then see things that weren’t actually there in front of our eyes. A painting can only be in one place at one time, but a camera makes copies of it that can be seen anywhere at any time. The camera has destroyed the individual meaning and made paintings accessible to all in any format. Cameras are second eyes. They allow us to see things we wouldn’t normally be able to. Photography has allowed us to see paintings and works of art that are located all over the world. They’ve been transformed into prints and can be seen on the web. Along the way we’ve lost the original meaning. We don’t view the piece the way the artists originally intended; therefore we don’t see the original meaning. Our perception of paintings change by the environment they’re in, what’s before it, and the music that is behind it. Our interpretation of things is subjective, like everything else.
museum visit I really enjoyed looking through David Hockney’s books in the reference room. I love his work and I got to see a ton of different examples that really inspired me to go in multiple directions. A lot of the other books that we looked through didn’t seem to be collaging in the same way as Hockney, so that weren’t as helpful to me. I learned that I really enjoy the organic collages in comparison to the grid ones. When we were in the print room I really enjoyed seeing life size pieces. I think it helped to see real artists’ work in their true form rather than in a book or on a web page. I think the pieces we saw in there were a lot different than Hockney’s method and was less collage and more time and space manipulation. I liked the photo with the boy running across in time and the architecture piece that was split down the middle. These were two ideas I hadn’t thought of and I thought they were very interesting. I think my favorite piece was the contrasting photographs of Green River Wyoming and how that landscape changed over time. It really caught my eye to see the same location in two clearly different time periods.
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project summary I loved this project and the fact I got to include people who are very important to me. David Hockney’s work really interested me and I enjoyed imitating his photo collages. I learned that it isn’t as easy as it looks and that you need a ton of photos from all angles. I think the most challenging part for me was that I had so many different ideas and it was hard to pick just one. I put a lot of work into two collages and wished I could have explored both. In relation to time and space, I learned that still photos can show more than a movie.
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