What is Art?

Believing is Seeing, Creating the Culture of Art by Mary Anne Staniszewski

Reaction From Chapter 1: What is Art?

Before opening "Believing is Seeing,"I had a deep feeling of procrastination.  To be honest I wasn't looking forward to reading a book that was dated, and had a book cover that looked a bit cliche.  I guess I should have listened to the life lesson of not judging a book by it's cover!  After reading the first FOUR chapters in only an hour I realized how sucked into this book I really was! I even flagged certain pages and quotes that caught my attention with ripped post-it notes.  Some statements even made me smile-which rarely happens when reading a book for a class!  Mostly, the first chapter was highly engaging for me because of the images that supported the text.  When Mary visually questioned what art IS it really made me think.  She was highly engaging with her questioning and supporting evidence.  Most people DO consider objects and paintings from the time of the Venus of Willendorf, 25,000-20,000 B.C. until now, ART.  However Mary made me think, are they really art?  Were they made for artistic purposes or simply for documentation, story telling, rituals or religion?  Probably a little bit of everything!! I feel like it may be a little unfair to say "this was not Art."

Stopped Motion Video : DUDE
Working on this video was a blast.  My team worked so well together and had everything prepared. Our original plan was to photograph our film in black and white and also included a few extra scenes.  However with the time permitted and the way in which things were panning out, we decided to omit the extra scenes.  Our choice to keep the film in color was unanamous.  We all loved how the blues and greens looked in our photos.  I think it was a good choice.  The final video turned out better than I could have imagined.  The music lined up perfectly with the actions in the film.  Even though it was a blast and turned out well, I'm not sure stopped animation is something I would continue to persue.  It is so detail orianted and requires a TON of patience!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0Ar2bZt7k

Personal Photo Portfolio

http://averillmcdowelldigitalart.weebly.com/

Gone Fishin'

The storyline for our stopped motion animation film follows a robot into the wilderness and documents his journey throughout the duration of a day.  This robot/dude hops into a boat on the edge of a body of water.  He pushes himself optimistically into the water to begin his day of fishing.  Our backdrop shows a rural mountainous landscape with only wild animals to keep our dude company.  He starts his journey at sunrise excited for his day.  As he is fishing he endures the monotony of being in the middle of a body of water by himself without a single catch of the day.  He becomes frustrated and ready to give up, when he finally catches a fish!  This fish pulls him out of the boat and into the depths of the water.  As our dude reaches the surface, his boat is long gone.  Dude swims to the shore where he builds himself a fire to keep warm.  At this time of day the sun is beginning to set.  As he warms himself by the fire the decides to cast one last line out of boredom.  To his surprise he catches a perfectly sized fish for his belly!

The story ends with Dude and his fish smiling at the camera.  This whole stopped motion will be filmed in black and white to show the beauty and simplicity of the shapes and lines.  

Here is a link to a black and white stopped motion: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Yn5mVtgco 

Stopped-Motion Animation/Photo with Text

 The Boxtrolls

This film used stopped-motion animation, 3D printing and cutting edge technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1El1xVRrkA

 I chose this photo because of the text in between the lines on the crosswalk.  I played around with adding more text in Photoshop, but would prefer to add a bit of collage elements into the white lines of the lush jungle to show the juxtaposition between the city and the jungle.

Same Subject Different Light

In these photographs I used all artificial light at night.  One was photographed inside while the rest were photographed outside.  While taking these photographs I leaned how important it was to direct my subject while also moving my body to get the best possible lighting.  My favorite photo is the one where my subject is looking straight into the camera.  I enjoy this photo because of the strong contrast and wrinkles in his clothing.  His stare is also piercing.  The photo I am most proud of is the full body shot where the light illuminates from behind him, which creates a halo around his body.  My vision was exactly what I was able to capture.

I decided to make all of my photos in back and white because of the simple elegance the final products embody.  Sometimes I feel like color complicates things, and I wanted the subject and shapes to speak for themselves.

Photoshop Manipulation

All of these pictures were taken during my visit to New York City last week.  I played around with composition, abstraction and color manipulation.  Some photos have been rotated or cropped to enhance the composition.  I decided to display the first two sets as triptychs. The photos on the left are the final photos after manipulation and the photos on the right are the original photos.

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

 

 

 

 

  

  

  

Fashion District...

  

5th Ave...

Final Photos...

Plagerism

Plagiarism in Photography

https://ccombs.wordpress.com/2007/02/08/plagiarism-in-photography/

This article was very thought provoking for me.  Especially at the end of the article where he quotes Mike Johnston,"photographers have two stages of development. In the first: you strive to emulate other photographers. The second: you strive to differentiate yourself from other photographers."  Which I believe is true, but what happens when something is photographed by two professionals, which turns out to be quite similar.  Maybe it isn't plagiarism, but coincidence?  And who is judging whether someone purposefully plagiarized or if it was happenstance? 

I think in our world today, with the ease it is to take pictures and manipulate, plagiarism is becoming even harder to distinguish.  There has always been a fine line with visual plagiarism, but now with the ease of technology things are going to become quite interesting - by forcing artists to push their art even further - what is art, what can art be, and how can you differentiate yourself from everyone else?  In some cases it makes things more difficult, but in other cases it may make our creative minds think even further outside the box. 

Project: Showing Motion

For this project I decided again, to take snapshots of things I see on a regular basis.  All of these snapshots are taken where I live.  I focused on moving my camera while my subject remained still for the majority of my photos.  The last photo I took, both the subject and my camera were moving.

 

 

I worked through trial and error with this project.  Especially since I am using an iPhone without any control of shutter speed.  I took this last photo by first making a video.  My subject was moving, as well as my camera.  Once I was finished with the video, I took screenshots of moments during the video that showed the best movement.  From there, I edited the photos to my liking.  

I loved the process of making these photos.  I wish I had a nice expensive camera so that I could experiment with long exposures!