To say Elaine Bay is an eccentric artist would be an understatement of the highest order. Maybe I haven't been exposed to too many artists from a non-college setting, but she was quite the character either way.
Bay assumed the pseudonym Princess Die after she left grad school and joined the group "the Miracale Five" and began to create art with them. She would take topical pieces from the media, and add demonic horns, serpentine tongues and bloody vomit to a cast of characters from Brittany Spears (which she was immensely proud of) to George Washington. She would collage the images as well as draw on them. She also had a pension for making animated gifs of said demonized icons.
After her work with Miracle Five, she moved onto the group Sweat 2 Die (STD), where she, Sweatron, and two dancers both known as "dancer 2" would literally dance themselves to exhaustion to combat fatness. They are classified under the genre of Super Visual Ghetto Tech.*
After one of the dancers left the group to move to some country in Europe, Elaine bay started another group, Golden Jasmine Yeti Dancer. GJYD was almost entirely formed out of spite against said dancer, apparently, although I'm not clear on how that actually worked. I'm not sure if she was kidding or not but she did not retract that fact so I'm going to assume she meant it as the truth.
Later, Bay created the "burkini," a comment on... something? She didn't really explain, just showed us a pic and said she made it with GJYD. I'm guessing it had to do with critisim on the Iraq/Afganistan war(s) due to it being made around 2008. The group also created the Ameros, after a thought experiment about what if all dollars had no value anymore because of a Canada/US/Mexico alliance. GJYD even made fake Ameros (yes, they actually did) again for reasons that were not well explained.
Honestly this lecture made me more confused than anything, but some of her art looked pretty cool, if it lacked description on her part and comprehension on mine.
*I kinda started to lose her at around this point, as she could barely operate the gifs on the computer and had to stop every two minutes to fix it, and was interrupted by her daughter numerous times during the talk, so I appologize for anything that doesn't make much sense.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Artist Lecture: Residencies
On Thursday (Happy Halloween!), I went to the PCAC to hear the presentation from a number of professors about Residencies and their benefits to aspiring and established artists.
We were first introduced to a series of websites about residencies that would help anyone to find residencies, with the given example of Community Service residencies in New York City. The idea of a community service residence is intriguing to me, and if I decide to pursue this after school I might look into that.
The first professor to speak was Grant Drumheller, who spoke of his time spent in Rome. He specified that after school was the perfect time for a residency, and that they were typically more for single people. Surprisingly, almost every speaker brought up the fact that a lot of these residencies had a lot of parties and "socializing," and it was put about that subtly.
After Grant, Jenifer Moses talked about Roswell and Seratoga. I personally think I would go a little crazy if I lived a full year in the middle of the desert by myself, and no amount of judging alien dog contests would be able to reprieve my sanity. But the Seratoga Springs residency interested me, specifically because of the history of the program, with so many famous artists going through there, and the history of the manor itself.
Next was Julee Holcomb, who spoke mostly about Skowegan. I found that this presentation was the one I connected to most, because I am mainly a photographer, and she was the only professor there who went with that medium. Some of the other residencies couldn't even be done with photography, so this gave me at least an example of someone who was able to go through a residency in my medium.
Rick Fox was after Julee, and he talked about C-Scape, where he lived on the dunes for several weeks, alone and without any power or freshwater or food (besides what he brought with him). I would love to do this just for the experience (and the fact that I might go a little crazy), but it did not sound like I could do anything like that as a photographer, especially a digital one.
I don't think the second to last professor introduced himself? But he talked about wine and New England beauty a lot so that was cool.
Finally, Leah Woods talked about her residency in Africa where she carved ornate wooden coffins in crazy designs (like a twix wrapper). Her experience was pretty interesting, and I would love to go to Africa to do photography, especially when one of my future dream jobs is working as a Nat Geo photographer.
Despite the fact that I don't think I will ever be able to do a residency, be it for monetary reasons or lacking the artistic ability to do so, I think I learned a great deal about what one can do with art after college, considering I didn't really know what a residency was before. If I ever did want to pursue a more artistic career with my photography, a residency would be a great help and would be a lot of fun (probably).
We were first introduced to a series of websites about residencies that would help anyone to find residencies, with the given example of Community Service residencies in New York City. The idea of a community service residence is intriguing to me, and if I decide to pursue this after school I might look into that.
The first professor to speak was Grant Drumheller, who spoke of his time spent in Rome. He specified that after school was the perfect time for a residency, and that they were typically more for single people. Surprisingly, almost every speaker brought up the fact that a lot of these residencies had a lot of parties and "socializing," and it was put about that subtly.
After Grant, Jenifer Moses talked about Roswell and Seratoga. I personally think I would go a little crazy if I lived a full year in the middle of the desert by myself, and no amount of judging alien dog contests would be able to reprieve my sanity. But the Seratoga Springs residency interested me, specifically because of the history of the program, with so many famous artists going through there, and the history of the manor itself.
Next was Julee Holcomb, who spoke mostly about Skowegan. I found that this presentation was the one I connected to most, because I am mainly a photographer, and she was the only professor there who went with that medium. Some of the other residencies couldn't even be done with photography, so this gave me at least an example of someone who was able to go through a residency in my medium.
Rick Fox was after Julee, and he talked about C-Scape, where he lived on the dunes for several weeks, alone and without any power or freshwater or food (besides what he brought with him). I would love to do this just for the experience (and the fact that I might go a little crazy), but it did not sound like I could do anything like that as a photographer, especially a digital one.
I don't think the second to last professor introduced himself? But he talked about wine and New England beauty a lot so that was cool.
Finally, Leah Woods talked about her residency in Africa where she carved ornate wooden coffins in crazy designs (like a twix wrapper). Her experience was pretty interesting, and I would love to go to Africa to do photography, especially when one of my future dream jobs is working as a Nat Geo photographer.
Despite the fact that I don't think I will ever be able to do a residency, be it for monetary reasons or lacking the artistic ability to do so, I think I learned a great deal about what one can do with art after college, considering I didn't really know what a residency was before. If I ever did want to pursue a more artistic career with my photography, a residency would be a great help and would be a lot of fun (probably).
Friday, November 1, 2013
More Works In Progress
Decided to put the mask on myself for a bit. Its just as creepy from the inside. Also started playing Night of the Living Dead and put the mask in front of that, and the effect is disturbing at best.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Monday, October 28, 2013
Addison Gallery Write-up
1. Chris Verene has a very Polaroid film feel, despite
having been taken in 2006-7. His work seems to look at the everyday of his
family life, in what seem like more run-down environments. Kathleen Robbins, on
the other hand, created images that captured an openness of her surroundings,
combining the ideas of where she grew up and her family. I personally enjoyed
her style of printing more; it is much more crisp and the color of the prints
are hauntingly beautiful.
2. Nina Berman’s Marine Wedding series was both
disturbing on a visual level, but also kind of a beautiful moment. I have many
family members who are or were in the armed services, and I thank god that none
of them ended up being injured in such a way as the young man in the pictures,
but I still have that connection to the uniform, and the very visceral reminder
that there is an inescapable horror associated with war, and no amount of
patriotism can negate that.
3. Patty Chan’s In Love was too much for me. I don’t
know if was differing cultural norms that I am not aware of, or there is
something else I am missing, but making out with your parents between and onion
while crying seems like a bit much. It felt too much like art for the sake of
creating a shock factor, and I didn’t really enjoy watching it at all.
4. I sometimes do, during holidays and such, but it
feels too much like an obligation to be enjoyable. There are so many
photographers on my dad’s side of the family it dosen’t really matter though,
because the pictures get taken whether I am doing them or not, so I usually
just try and relax. My favorite family photo was one of myself and my young
cousin at the piano, me watching over him as he tries to play. It was taken by
my great uncle Sy Johnson and is in crisp black and white and with amazing
lighting.
5. For the exhibit as a whole, I noticed a very
diverse set of family types, but there were some missing demographics from the
collection. Most of the families were middle or lower class, probably because
most of the photographers happened to have come from those kinds of family environments.
And on a similar note, the families were predominantly white. Otherwise I
generally enjoyed this exhibit, and would like to see more work of at least
some of the photographers.
6. It has opened me up more to the possibility of
using family as a subject in my photos, though knowing them and our fights we had
with our father, it probably won’t be easy to get them to pose.
7. Pigment print: a type of printing that uses
pigments to directly color the paper.
Cibachrome print: a handmade method of
color slide printing that uses yellow, magenta, and cyan dyes.
Chromogenic Print: Using a color negative
and a lightjet printer or similar device to create a print.
Giclee print: fine art prints made on an
inkjet printer.
Lightjet print: a process that uses red,
green, and blue lasers on silver based paper to make a color print.
Inkjet: typical printing style, uses inks of
varying colors to create a picture.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Portrait Lighting
Photo Album
Butterfly Lighting:
For the Butterfly lighting setup, we had a main light set above the head and a bounce below to fill in the shadows on the underside of the face.
For the Butterfly lighting setup, we had a main light set above the head and a bounce below to fill in the shadows on the underside of the face.
Loop Lighting:
With the loop lighting, we used a fill and a main light, and had a light set right above the head as a hair light to give the "loop" of this style.
With the loop lighting, we used a fill and a main light, and had a light set right above the head as a hair light to give the "loop" of this style.
Three Point Lighting:
With this style, we just moved the overhead light and made it the back light, filling in the background.
Short Lighting:
Just for fun, we also did short lighting, which we only used one main light to get the shadows on the face (we didn't even need the fill because of all the ambient light in the room).
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Loop Lighting
Four lights
Camera and tripod
A Seamless Background
Lighting Stands (2)
Stand for overhead light (1)
Subject (1)
What To Do:
Step 1: Set up the backdrop at a perpendicular angle to the subject.
Step 2: Put a background light facing back directly behind the subject lighting the backdrop. Set it up low and so that it it cakes a semicircle of illumination behind the subject, and have it grow gradually darker as your eye moves further away from the subject.
Step 3: Set up the key Light 35 degrees off of the camera and tripod
Step 4: Set up the fill light 20 degrees off the the camera on the other side
Step 5: Set up the hair light, using already available overhead lights or the overhead light stand.
If using softer lights, move the lights closer to the subject.
Examples:
Bill McIntosh
Shelby Clark
Sources:http://www.sekonic.com/whatisyourspecialty/photographer/articles/the-five-basic-portrait-lighting-setups.aspx
http://shelbyrenee20.blogspot.com/2010/11/pressure.html
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
Still Life: Favorite Photo of the Shoot
This is the classic Still Life I liked the best. I typically prefer a more simple composition that is not very busy. This also reminds me of my final for darkroom, and I love taking pictures of skulls. The shadow in this is very interesting in how it draws away from the jaw so sharply and looks almost foreign to the object.
I also added this photo because it is a step removed from the still life and gives perspective to the assignment as a whole. You can see what the picture they are taking is of, but then you also have the view of the cameras taking the picture. While that may take away from the illusion of the artwork a bit, it also adds additional depth to the idea of a still life, and adds character to the work.
Boston Calling Photography
Over this weekend, I had the privilege of being able to be a press photographer for TNH at he Boston Calling music festival. It was an amazing experience, I was able to meet a bunch of great people and take some fantastic photos. This is what I want to do with my life (basically) and though this wasn't my first rodeo in the music festival department, it was the first I did on my own and with such a heavy journalistic focus. It is something I want to do again as soon as possible.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
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