Tuesday, September 18, 2007

melissa wilson Reading response 9/17/07

The Jonas Mekas article I thought was very like, self-absorbed?? All the characters talking in the text were being random and artsy for the sake of being artsy. They were trying to be different and interesting but really just sounded like idiots. They were trendezoids! The article would have been more interesting in my mind if they had talked like regular people. The whole idea of shooting the empire state building for a long period of time is a good one. But I think maybe the length of the film is a little excess. Perhaps Warhol was trying to see how long people would stay and watch the movie, if they were trying too hard to be artsy by staying and watching the whole film. But there is also the question the viewer will ask. “What if I leave and something different happens?” so they will sit through hours of the same footage, hoping something different will happen. I wouldn’t stay through the whole film; I would leave after 3 hours.

I thought the Moholy-Nagy article was interesting I liked his thoughts about time and space in photography. I was interested in the part about motion pictures, it really made me think about my own work and how I could make it a narrative, how I can make my own still photography like a movie. I just have a hard time thinking how I could do it subtly, without being to obvious that I am purposely making a narrative piece. Something to think about…..

After reading Maholy-Nagy’s article, Bresson’s article brings about a similar idea about narrative. He suggests that a single picture should tell a story. I think this would be a very hard thing to do. The content of this picture would have to be very busy, and would have to feel emotionally charged. These two things are very hard to put together into one photograph. I think you are lucky to capture one or two emotionally charged pictures in your lifetime, never mind capture it and then have to make it busy and visually striking. I don’t know, maybe you just have to be a very skilled photographer to be able to do this. I guess it’s just something to hope for. Another part of the article I liked was about how to photograph for the consumer, you have to know who your audience is. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the context of photographs, mostly how other people present your work in a way that can askew your original meaning, or might make a mistake in displaying it, which can make the photographer look bad. Bresson talked about it but I don’t think ever came up with a solution to the problem. I guess you just have to work closely with the people handling your work and trust they know what its about and can accurately display it. I love Bresson’s articles, pictures and films so I really enjoyed this article.

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