Berlin Portraiture

  I recently came across an article in Trip Magazine about James Perolls' portraits taken around the city of Berlin. He does a lot of really great soft focus work--a lot of portraits. Not all of these are striking portraits, however some of them really do connect through the lens to touch the viewer. I think that achieving that level of engagement with the audience would be my goal in portraiture.

    I never thought I would be a photographer that would want to take tons of portraits. However, recently I have been interested in conquering my fear of talking to strangers and want to go out with a purpose of talking to people in order to make a good picture. I realize that a lot of the time I think that it is too awkward or just not the right time to whip out my camera in the middle of a conversation. I think that there's definitely a way to do it without being that awkward. I have an idea evolving in my head about making a little mini handmade book on people that I meet on the street in Richmond. It would be such a huge step for me in overcoming my fear and I could probably make some really cool work with it.

Valley Uprising

This is a documentary that I am very obsessed with directed by Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen. Besides the excitement I have for the sport itself, the construction of this documentary makes me absolutely love this film! The combination of the old found footage/pictures, animations, and new footage blends together so well. Also the shots they get of the intense climbing is almost as impressive as the climbing being done! This film also shows me how worth it it is to capture and collect as much footage as you can and to then take the time to piece it all together. I tend to get intimidated when I have endless hours of content to edit together. as Shane always says (screams) JUST DO IT. After watching this I am inspired in many different ways. 1) I want to go climbing el capitan at yosemite 2) dig into hours of footage I have of various different adventures and make something of it 3) somehow incorporate animations and older found footage with new footage.

Matthew Brandt

Matthew Brandt caught my eye when the VMFA recently acquired one of his large pieces - I instantly fell in love. The piece was called Grey's Lake, a gigantic c-print that had been soaked in the water of the lake depicted in the photograph.

He utilizes the subject of his prints in his process by burying them, soaking them in bodies of water, or in his series Honeybees in 2007 he used the carcasses of the masses of bees he discovered dying from colony collapse disorder in his emulsion.

While he's begun to anticipate and maybe even coax some of the outcomes, each print is one of a kind. He's also been in group exhibitions with another artist I've posted before, Mariah Robertson. I'm more and more drawn into the world of chemical reactions and all the wonderful discoveries that can be made by changing a process in different ways.

Installation shots

Go to the VMFA and check out his work in person if you haven't had the pleasure yet.

Melanie Manchot

After my last critique shane suggested I look at her series Gestures of Demarcation, where she goes around and asks random people to pull the skin on her upper body as far as they can, testing the limits of her body while also recording the  act.
 

This series, as well as the other he reccomended
http://www.melaniemanchot.net/category/fontainebleau/
Where she has two women in a bathtub recreate this image from the School of Fontainebleau 
but then encourages the woman to find other gestures touches while remaining in the bathtub
resulting in images that are pretty strange. It is really interesting to see what kind of moments happen between the women, especially when they aren't given instruction on how to pose.
 I think what really has me interested in Melanie's work is the performative and participatory aspects. In a lot of her work she is documenting an act, sometimes its one that is more natural, such as a kiss, and other times it's more composed. It's interesting to see the way her participants react to her instructions, and I would like to try and get more involved with people in this way.

ANASTASIA SAMOYLOVA

Anastasia Samoylova's work is insanely beautiful and simple in process (sort of) but complicated in "final product" 

She starts by picking a random word of phrase and then she does a google search of that word. She selects and curates a series of images that she's found online regarding that word or phrase, and then she prints those images. Kind of like what Penelope Umbrico does. She then proceeds to Cut up, bend, fold, obstruct, reflect, and configure these images into sculptural elements that she composes in a studio. You get these crazy mind bending sort of sculptures. She also kind of reminds me of Daniel Gordon.

Im interested in her because of the way she uses materials to create such mind bending and intricate compositions. My work seems really chaotic right now, which i like, but i'm also curious to see what would happen if were to consider composition and negative space a bit more.

Also her work, for me, is a new way of looking at the idea of landscapes. Which has been a not so explored consistent theme in my work thus far.

http://anastasiasamoylova.com/

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/anastasia-samoylova-landscape-sublime/?mbid=social_fb#slide-1

Stan Brakhage - Unconscious London Strata

Unconscious London Strata (1981) is one of the many works of experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzQU7FCfwfw

I feel like this piece is especially relevant to me recently, considering the direction I'm moving towards. I actually thought of this work a bit as I've been working on my latest piece for thursday's crit - especially regarding color and abstraction.

Julia Steinigeweg and GUP

While I was waiting for my friend to finish getting a haircut I went into the book store to kill some time. I'm happy I did because I found GUP magazine. This magazine is basically a $20 artist book featuring a bunch of European photographers that I would never have found if it wasn't for the book. Basically it is a magazine that has four issues a year. It's a great resource for finding new artist and its so cheap that its totally a thing that people could start collecting. Ya'll should check it out because the current issue gave me a lot of things to start thinking about in my work. 

http://www.gupmagazine.com

But anyways, one of the artists that stuck out to me in the issue that I purchased is named Julia Steinigeweg. All her work is dope but my favorite series by her is titled A Confusing Potential. This series consists of portraits of people with life like dolls, or simply just portraits humanizing the dolls. This series is questioning whether or not love has to be felt with another human or if it could be felt alone and individually. Personally I think it can be felt in both ways. However, I think she is trying to talk about how people can use objects to fill voids that another person has left in their life. I like this a lot because it is something that I personally think about a lot and would like to apply in a different way to my own practice. We're never along guys. Theres always someone looking out for you whether you know it or not. Almost like a coping mechanism. Its funny, at first glance I couldn't even tell that some of the dolls weren't real. Its cool stuff check it out! 

https://www.dergreif-online.de/artist-features/blog/julia-steinigeweg-a-confusing-potential/