photography by blind people

Check out this link....It is similar to the class I am taking working with people of Aphasia. Excpet this is of blind people working with photography.

Picture for Discussion

For our first assignment we had to read “The Nature of Photographs,” and pick a picture to discuss in class and prepare one question to pose for discussion. I chose an image from “Easton Portraits” by Judith Joy Ross, 1988.
For our first assignment we had to read “The Nature of Photographs,” and pick a picture to discuss in class and prepare one question to pose for discussion. I chose an image from “Easton Portraits” by Judith Joy Ross, 1988.
Judith is a portrait photographer. This image is of three young girls in bathing suits looking shyly at the camera while behind them, in the distance and out of focus, a teenage boy observes the proceedings. I feel the picture varies in textures, starts a narrative, and is cleverly composed.
She captures their individuality and innocence. Seem like sweet young girls.
This is a straightforward image of the girls centered in the frame. The space they inhabit is not clearly defined. We are left, instead, to read their faces. Also by leaving the space not behind not in focus, she captures the emotions of each photo's subjects without succumbing to the clouding context of their surrounding environment. As the book states, “There is a gravitation of attention to the plane of focus. Attention to focus concentrates our attention” on to the girls.

She workes with an old-fashioned view camera that produces 8 x 10 negatives

As for my question: Do you think this image represents childhood and innocents or a passage into women hood?

my new class. and how much i do not know

I am very excited, and intimidated, about my current class “Digital Photography/ Photo as Language.” It is an advanced level studio art class using photography as the medium. It is also a service-learning course exploring the communication abilities of photos for People with Aphasia. This being an advanced art class does not intimidate me, but photography is a new medium to me. So is the language disorder, Aphasia. I had never even heard about this disorder until this class, and am learning about it as we go. It often occurs in those that have suffered from strokes, which leaves them with the inability to communicate well through speech/writing. But this does not mean their thought processes is affected. As a class we will be traveling to The UCF Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders to work with adults rehabbing from this disorder. Photography will be working as a therapy to release their ideas and share them with others. As a visual culture this may help the individuals communicate better with society.
By the end of this course I hope to understand Aphasia better, and be able to spread more concern about this disorder. I also hope to understand photography better, and feel more comfortable being behind a lens.

Home

Back home for the Holidays. The snow is a big transition from the sandy beaches. But it fits the season :)I am lucky to be with family.

new site

Well just giving my link to my new website! I hope you like it, and I plan to build it up more with time. It is a good start though.

Click HERE

Watch video on full screen!

This film ended up being personal. Using two characters I wanted to question tall and short, and how height can alter your everyday life. A look at self image. The film is of two roommates who are very different in size and personality. To stay away from a narrative feel I did re-ordering of scenes. More of a collage of images from everyday life that zoomed in on the height gap, questioning what is normal. There is very little sound added to this piece and it is also done in black and white. All the attention was put into the footage taken and the movement of the camera. My goal was for the audience to only focus their attention on the two girls. This being my first video I realize I need more practice on filming and editing. I did like the concept of portraying self-images, and if our height effects our personality. What makes us who we are. Overall there are scenes of daily activities and how they are different for the girls. There are also scenes zoomed in on their faces so the audience can pick up their personalities. And finally a couple images where the girls are looking at themselves in the mirror (examining their self image).

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik was born in Korea, but passed away as an American artist in 2006. He made a significant impact on introducing video as a medium into the art world. He was also a composer and performer. After knowing these facts you can better understand his work, and see themes of Korea, music, and video in a majority of his work.

In his early life he studied music, which leads to inspire Paik with his future in art. He moved to Germany after college where he got involved with the Neo-Dada movement (working with contemporary materials, popular images, and contrast. He did this along other artist in a group known as Fluxus. This group questioned and challenged what constituted as art at the time. This is when Paik begun to experiment and the use TVs. He worked with video installations using various amounts and sizes of monitors in his work.

In the early 1960’s he moved to the United States and started working with Charlotte Moorman, a classical cellist, to combine his video art with her music. One of the earliest examples is “TV Cello” where he forms multiple monitors to take the shape of a cello. She sits and plays as images of her playing appear on the screens. Next portable video/recorders were invented and the creativeness of his work took off. becomes a more risqué in the late 60’s. One example is the “TV Bra for Living Sculpture,” where Charlotte is only wearing a bra made from TVs.

Another theme Paik was known for was his ability to make robots out of TVs, using various objects to put them together like metal, wire, and radios. My favorite is “Beuys Voice,” a robot/man in a top hat done in 1990. The next major theme is his ability to show his love for his home, and other places he has lived. He made them appear in his monitors or dedicated work to specific places. In 1988 he showed great appreciation for Korea in “The More The Better,” which is a giant tower of 1,003 monitors for the Olympic Games in Seoul.

Overall I like Paik’s work and being innovative. He was not just artistic but very smart. He realized music was the center of art movements in the 60’s and used it in his art. He was also first on the trend of video art. Being one of the first his art has a chop shop/ garage feel with wires and use of heavy metal, but this could be on purpose. In his robots this look is most apparent. Paik took advantage of changing times and had fun with media art.

In Paik’s career he experimented with combining performance, music, video, and forming objects. He wanted to make the audience question the nature of television. Although he worked with various media, he is well known as one of the first to work with video art. To quote Paik "Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body's new membrane of existence." This holds more true with every day that passes.

Visual Reference:

Nam June Paik: Fluxus/ Video

Paik's website: www.paikstudios.com