Post Review Brain Dump
So, it's taken me a bit to deal with a lot of what came out of the review. Things went well. Things were fairly mellow until the expected tough questions and feedback came. I wound up leaving campus in a bit of a funk, and wasn't in a mood to be social at Ocean Beach.
Anyway...
I got cleared and was recommended to focus on platinum printing by the committee. They felt that with the broad brush I've been working in, it was the most focused and to a certain extent strongest of all of my "experiments." It's kind of funny to think that they're the ones calling my work that, when they explicitly tell you not to use that word.
They were a little surprised that I brought up a comment about how I was beginning to think towards thesis. I've got another year ahead of me before I have to get very serious about it. When I mentioned equipment and materials expenses, and pointed out that in the case of one print, it has taken me 80 minutes of exposure time to create one finished platinum print, it made sense. That's also excluding developing and clearing time. So we're talking about two hours to create one print in the end.
They rightfully busted my balls on needing to work on talking more about ideas and things I have been reading in classes. I know it's a place that I struggle. They also rightfully busted by balls on being too technical. I've got enough of the back end figured out that I should stop focusing on the darkroom and focus more on the images.
They've got a couple of people they're recommending that I look at(I'm blanking on names, and the head of my committee said he'd e-mail them to me). I think my fall show will boil down to one of two things - either showing the scroll somehow, or showing platinum prints. The scroll is a 2' wide x 15' long print. I'd have to figure out how to display it in a similar fashion to how I displayed it for review. I tacked it up about 8' up on a wall, and had it draped down across a table top. The other option is to find a spot somewhere on campus that I could install it in a more two dimensional fashion. One of the artists mentioned by the committee does some sort of mix of photography as sculpture.
I know I need to broaden the scope a bit at what I'm looking at, but even for all the uncertainty that has cropped up as a result of the review, I still want to give some thought to this Irving Penn meets Bob Carlos Clarke idea I've got. Find some way to mix the classy quiet introspection with a sexy edge to it. I still may do more landscape stuff, but I've still got that desire to work with people again. Somehow, platinum makes some of the images that I felt were a bit static looking, feel completely different. maybe it's because the image is a part of the paper, and not sitting above it.
Who knows? It's time for me to catch my breath, find a summer job ASAP, and start booking some photo sessions. It's time to take this Irving Penn quote to heart from the end of "Platinum Prints."
"We don't call them shoots here....
We don't shoot people.
It's really a love affair."
- CWM
Anyway...
I got cleared and was recommended to focus on platinum printing by the committee. They felt that with the broad brush I've been working in, it was the most focused and to a certain extent strongest of all of my "experiments." It's kind of funny to think that they're the ones calling my work that, when they explicitly tell you not to use that word.
They were a little surprised that I brought up a comment about how I was beginning to think towards thesis. I've got another year ahead of me before I have to get very serious about it. When I mentioned equipment and materials expenses, and pointed out that in the case of one print, it has taken me 80 minutes of exposure time to create one finished platinum print, it made sense. That's also excluding developing and clearing time. So we're talking about two hours to create one print in the end.
They rightfully busted my balls on needing to work on talking more about ideas and things I have been reading in classes. I know it's a place that I struggle. They also rightfully busted by balls on being too technical. I've got enough of the back end figured out that I should stop focusing on the darkroom and focus more on the images.
They've got a couple of people they're recommending that I look at(I'm blanking on names, and the head of my committee said he'd e-mail them to me). I think my fall show will boil down to one of two things - either showing the scroll somehow, or showing platinum prints. The scroll is a 2' wide x 15' long print. I'd have to figure out how to display it in a similar fashion to how I displayed it for review. I tacked it up about 8' up on a wall, and had it draped down across a table top. The other option is to find a spot somewhere on campus that I could install it in a more two dimensional fashion. One of the artists mentioned by the committee does some sort of mix of photography as sculpture.
I know I need to broaden the scope a bit at what I'm looking at, but even for all the uncertainty that has cropped up as a result of the review, I still want to give some thought to this Irving Penn meets Bob Carlos Clarke idea I've got. Find some way to mix the classy quiet introspection with a sexy edge to it. I still may do more landscape stuff, but I've still got that desire to work with people again. Somehow, platinum makes some of the images that I felt were a bit static looking, feel completely different. maybe it's because the image is a part of the paper, and not sitting above it.
Who knows? It's time for me to catch my breath, find a summer job ASAP, and start booking some photo sessions. It's time to take this Irving Penn quote to heart from the end of "Platinum Prints."
"We don't call them shoots here....
We don't shoot people.
It's really a love affair."
- CWM