Appropriation is appropriate. Ha.

As much fun as it is to make your own art, re-creating or seeing re-creations of famous works is enjoyable, especially if they’re funny. And that’s sometimes the aim: to mimic a famous work (or they’re just jealous). Appropriation is used everywhere, even the Romans made duplicates of the mostly-destroyed Greek art. I appropriate work when I document music shows, still perfecting how to shoot a nice, clean, perhaps obnoxious picture at shows (i.e. Brandon Hambright, Jeremy Saffer, etc.). I also appropriate when I try to figure out how to photograph people – lighting, positioning, facial expressions… For my awkward portraits I looked at 80’s studio portraits, and for my deadpan-of-random-people (unfinished) series, Albrecht Tubke’s deadpan portraits (citizens > portraits) were my inspiration (though they’re not nearly as appealing so far). Why did I appropriate Tubke? He isn’t the only one; I plan to emulate Bettina von Zwehl’s series of taking a photograph of people suddenly woken up (Untitled one & Untitled three). I like how plainly the people are photographed, hence, deadpan; then I also like the true emotion and facial expressions people can’t hide when they’re caught in an uncomfortable moment. Don’t you know how silly you look when you’re just waking up, or how exhausted you make me feel when you look like you’ve been running on 3 hours of sleep over 3 days? It’s just weird and interesting how easily visible human emotion connects with viewers.