Animations

Mayor to Ease Permit Rules for Capturing City's Image

I chose this article for my gleaning because while skimming through it, I was shocked to see that a law had been considered which would have required a permit and at least $1 million in liability insurance for groups of two or more filming or photographing for more than 30 minutes in New York City. Although the law was meant as way to cut back on filmmakers and their sets from blocking pedestrian traffic, it would have greatly cut back on individuals’ ability to photograph public spaces in New York City. I wonder if the original version of the law was meant to prevent photographers from documenting New York. It seems like the way in which the law was originally written was meant to do more than simply prevent filmmakers from blocking sidewalks. It is very unlikely that two people standing in the same place with a camera for 30 minutes could seriously block pedestrian traffic.

Do you think the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting accidentally made the law too encompassing or that they wrote this law with the intention of limiting amateur photography and filmmaking? Do you think the Mayor’s office may have been looking for a way to decrease photography in New York City for security issues or that this law was created solely to deal with the issue of photographers and filmmakers obstructing sidewalks and pedestrian traffic?

The following is a link to the website of a group that worked to weaken the regulations regarding the need for permits and liability insurance for photographing and filming on the streets of New York… http://www.pictureny.org.

Free Shoot 9

Aline Smithson

I love practically all of Aline Smithson’s photos aesthetically. In particular I like the composition and the lighting. The “People I Don’t Know” series of collected photographs held by others is really nice. Over the summer I had been looking at my grandparents’ old photographs and was trying to think of some way to incorporate them into a photo project. Smithson’s idea for using old photographs in a new way is great, and exactly what I wish I had thought of. Smithson’s portraits are all really great. I like the “Charlotte” series of her daughter and the “Regarding Henry” series of her son. One of the few series of hers that I didn’t like as much is series of the portraits of the hugo doll. Aesthetically, I like the way the photos look, but the idea seems kind of dull and the subject doesn't interest me. I don’t like her hand painted photos as much as her black and white or color photographs. Her photos are great and many of them are just like what I wish my photos could be like.

Response to Lies Assignment

I liked the lies assignment in that it gave us lots of flexibility in choosing what to create but at the same time forced us to learn a little more about Photoshop. The looseness of this assignment made the critiques even more interesting and exciting than usual because the projects were all so different and it was fun trying to find the lies in some of the more subtle projects.

Although I disliked having to matte prints for the color assignment, I liked that everyone had to matte or prepare their photos for display in some way for this project. Having to consider presentation added to the photos for this project much more than it did for the color assignment. As far as my presentation is concerned, maybe I should have better researched 1950s/1960s photographs and displayed my photos differently than I did.

Two weeks sometimes seems a little short for assignments, especially if one wants to experiment with a few thoughts before deciding on a final idea. I wish that I had more time to take photos for this project. I had not intended my photos to be of Bowdoin in a previous era, as some thought, but rather I wanted each photograph to appear as if it was taken 50 years before it actually was. If I had shot more, I would have had a wider variety of photographs and perhaps my idea would have been clearer.

Lies

Free Shoot 8

Lomography

I really enjoyed reading about the Lomo cameras and lomography. I never knew there were so many cameras available that could create such strange effects. However, because so much is left up to chance and the camera itself, the artist isn't fully in control of his or her work. This makes me think lomography is more like fun than like art. I still don't exactly understand what lomography means - does using any plastic camera that distorts the photo in interesting ways in combination with the photographer not thinking carefully about each individual photo constitue lomography?

Erik Hansen

I’m not a big fan of Erik Hansen’s I-scapes. I guess I prefer more realistic photos with subtler lies. However, I’m impressed that I can’t tell whether he photographs alien-like sculptures/sets that he’s made or whether the photos are computer manipulated or both. My favorite of his works on his website is “Take Your Time… We’re Waiting for You” because it seems the most realistic (although I don’t like the overdramatic name). Another nice aspect of “Take Your Time… We’re Waiting for You” and some of his other photos is how he makes it difficult to judge scale in his works. It is difficult to judge the scale of the objects in “Refuge” and “Take Your Time… We’re Waiting for You.” In the first image, the ladder seems very small relative to the grass and in the second, the mountainous objects seems quite small compared to the grass. Another example is in “Thin Skinned” where I think I’m looking at a fairly close up shot of sand with pieces of string running through it but maybe it is something else entirely photographed from far away.

Free Shoot 7

Photographic Lying

Vicki Goldberg’s article, “Of Fairies, Free Spirits, and Outright Frauds” made me think of the different ways in which photos can “lie.” Photos can be lies in themselves or they can capture a set up or arranged situation that is the lie. It is interesting to me that the fairy photos are not manipulated, but rather, the fairy drawings were simply attached to the trees and plants with hatpins, and then the photos were taken. Upon first looking at the photos, I had assumed that the fairies were not in the actual photo but that something had been done in the darkroom to merge the fairy drawings with the photos of the girls.

If the photograph is not doctored/manipulated in any way but it is portraying something false, is it a lie? For example, are the fairy photographs false even though the photograph is showing just what the camera saw? Is a photograph that portrays a meaning other than the truth a lie? For example, is a portrait that makes one believe the subject is happy true even if the person is not and just smiled for the second that it took to take the photograph?

When I look at photographs that seem to have been taken at just the right moment, I often wonder if the photo was staged or not. I’m not sure why, but to me I always appreciate a natural photo more than one that has been staged.

With the photos that I have been taking of sinks, I sometimes arrange the objects around the sink in order to make a more well composed photo. But I always feel a little guilty and like I should be taking the photo without changing anything. Are my sink photos lying? Should I document everything just as it is?

Free Shoot 6