Daniel Everett

some really great polaroids that I'm so into right now.

www.daniel-everett.com

so funny

Andrea Geyer

Andrea Geyer

I'm really obsessed with Andrea Geyer's boardroom images right now. It's the formality of them that makes them so amazing. They could be photographs of the most banal subject (which they are, actually), but because they are so formally and perfectly positioned and photographed, they become something completely different. This is what I was trying to accomplish with my photographs of dining room and kitchen tables. I loved the idea of country homes having a "formal" dining room and a kitchen table, and the repetition found between the tables in these homes. I'm really attracted to the repetition and limited color palate used in these, which is something that almost always attracts me to imagery.

presentation

I, along with everyone else, have now become concerned with the presentation of my images. I have edited my polaroids down to about 12-14, and want to finalize it to 10. I've protected the originals with plastic sleeves for my portfolio. My biggest problem with the final presentation of them is that they are so small. I'm really worried that they will be extremely overpowered in the show, because most of the class will have 2 relatively large framed prints, and I will have 2 very tiny ones.
I really want to use pieces of wood from my dad's garage/woodshop to mount them on. I think that it speaks really well to the series and that the wood will look really great with the sort of "rustic" feel of the pictures. I found some great scraps that are perfect for me at about 10 x 10 inches. I'm really afraid to go any smaller, because like I said, I already think they will be overpowered, and I still want them to have a presence. At that size, I'm not sure whether to mount the actual polaroids, which would look great but be tiny, or make prints that are about 8 x 8.

Artist Statement

This series of work was photographed in the homes of my family in the rural towns of Ruther Glen, Virginia, and Mt. Airy, North Carolina. It is an intimate look at the life and culture of rural southern America, and the people, places and things that characterize it.
Southern Living is shot with an instant polaroid camera, utilizing a film that carries you back to the time in which this part of the nation is still living in. The subjects come from low income households and small towns in a farming community.
There is an emphasis on domestic living, and on the houses and objects contained within them that become an integral part of rural life. Furniture and objects, accompanied by oral histories are passed down through this family and continue to have a place through many generations. Family, heritage and tradition are important parts of these people's lives, and therefore important parts of my work.
By photographing my own family I am able to show the culture in a very personal light. At the same time, I am very far removed from many of the people and areas pictured. It is my intent to show this work in both a subjective and objective way. Southern Living is an intimate series of photographs of rural southern America, from the outside in.

uploads!

I have picture of things. I can't upload them.

postcards

came in the mail yesterday. so fast.

Anderson

possibilities for the Anderson show. these images are 30" x 40".

Oyvind Hjelmen

"The quiet photographs made by Oyvind Hjelmen are intimate philosophical explorations of time, memory, history, loss, (photography itself), and more. Over the past decade, this Norwegian photographer has covered many genres: some staged, some documentary, some merely beautiful celebrations of light and nature.
In this series, he documents the last bits of once-prized possessions in an old house, as the house is gradually emptied after the person who lived there has died.
Hjelmen says, “These images are about what happens when a house that was home to a family for several generations, one day is being cleared out to be sold. What is left when all the little objects, once so precious, and all the pictures that were on the walls are gone? What stories do the empty – or near empty – walls tell? What is left in an empty room?”
These moody photographs are not necessarily melancholy, nostalgic, or romantic. Rather, they demonstrate a peaceful, hushed acceptance and mute wonder at how things come and go in the world.
The manner with which Hjelmen chooses to share these images with us is equally thoughtful and deliberate. The relatively small square photos (12 x 12 cm) invite an intimacy with the viewer. Each masterly printed black-and-white photograph can be held in the hand like a small fragile bird, and viewed with a sense of wonder at the delicate richness of detail and the beauty of imperfections.
These are images of abandoned spaces — once alive, but now, in these precious hand-held testaments to memory, quiet and still, but never empty.
The photos reverberate with a visual language of archetypes, memories and dreams. Hjelmen is a master of letting light do its job in photography. The flat, even, wintry window-light evokes a sense of stillness and quiet in this inner architecture. It brings to mind the dimming of life, and the diminished light of memory. The light of dreams is here as well, with objects like a old hockey stick and a chipped mirror looming out at us from inside a nearly empty unlit closet.
These are not quick and easy photos to appreciate, but they are rich and rewarding. Spend some quiet time alone with these photographs, and allow them to speak with you. I believe you will be enriched by the experience."

new images

Todd Hido

I'm really intrigued by Todd Hido's work. I had been familiar with his photographs of houses at night, but am much more interested after hearing him speak about them. the way that he photographs them transforms them from simply being a house on the street, to being a home with people living and moving on the inside. the small glimpses that he gives us of human life- a light on or a flickering television- bring so much life into the work and keep the viewer engaged.
I was not familiar, however, with any of Hido's other work before the lecture. I really took to his landscapes. they are really just the type of work that I am drawn to, especially his use of water on glass or other ways of photographing that add a similar romantic feel. Although, I related to his work more so when he spoke of childhood photographs, his family and the home and small town that he grew up in, and how they all influence his work today. I have a lot of the same thoughts about my own work, but he was able to explain it in a way that made so much more sense to me.
I enjoyed all the work shown by Hido, but none so much as his most recent portraits. I loved to hear him speak about the shitty instant camera he was using during the photoshoots, and getting a completely different aesthetic than any of his previous work. Where his large format film was expensive and saved for what he thought were his best shots, the childhood camera he used in between those shots produced something that I thought was much more refreshing and obviously less staged and meticulously thought out than his other work.

kitchen tables

more Chris Verene- another look at kitchen tables and how things in our houses speak to the culture. Verene's table focuses specifically on the mess and what is actually inside the house and on the table/in the kitchen. Maybe it's just because I come from the world of rural homes and kitchen tables myself, but I can look at this photograph and see the area itself. to city-dwellers, kitchen tables are just kitchen tables.

polaroid film

the choice to use polaroid film for my work is purely aesthetic. I really love the colors it produces, the way they are just slightly off, making it hard to tell whether the subject was photographed yesterday or in the 1960's. the flash is always too harsh, the palate is muted, the picture, and the instant camera itself, are just plain shitty. it's the shittiness of the image that I am drawn to, the way that the images I have taken look like they may be someone's cast-offs.
the same way that someone chooses a certain brand or speed of film, or chooses a digital capture because of the way each handles color, light, etc, I choose instant film. I agree that the polaroid, especially being a dying breed, is a "beautiful and delicate object", I just don't think that it pertains to my work or the style or aesthetic that I am working to obtain. For me, that is another project altogether. I choose it because of the way the film handles color, light, etc, versus other films or digital cameras. It's a choice made purely for aesthetic reasons with no other underlying concept, and that is perfectly ok with me.

before/after

I visited my family in mt. airy, north carolina recently. the last time i went, my best picture that came out of the trip was of my dying great-aunt, Imogen, on her hospital bed in the middle of her living room. She died shortly after, and this was my first visit to her widower, my great-uncle Tom, and to that house since her death. My biggest concern was somehow for that living room. I didn't remember it before the hospital bed and the almost always unconscious woman. She was set up there, the first thing you see when you walk into the house, in the middle of the living room, on display for everyone. She had become so integral to the house itself that I didn't know how to be in there without that hospital bed. Now there is just a couch occupying her space, as if she was never there.

kitchen tables

I don't know what brought on my recent obsession with kitchen tables, but something as simple as everyday furnishings can speak so strongly about a culture. The kitchen tables of my family in rural southern parts of the country are dramatically different than those from my friends' new york city apartments. Spaces that people occupy and the things in those spaces become so much of a person or a way of life.

Anthony Goicolea

I was really intrigued by Goicolea's work, and especially so after hearing him speak. His images using repeated versions of himself are interesting, but I am most interested in his shelter photographs. The idea of spaces and their impact on us, and at the same time our impact on them is something that I have thought about a lot lately. His images are striking at first glance, and because their layers and complexity, there is a complete other world to them upon closer examination.

personal vs. public

the tension between personal and public- taking an idea that is personal and bringing it to public view

there's no reason why everyone should care about my family. however, my family is not the main point of my work. my family is the personal thought behind the work. the public idea is family relationships, and where they stem from; the history and culture of American families. How do the traditions passed down through generations affect a person? How do personal possessions represent those family values? How do things like land, places and objects from a family's past become important to its future? the most effective way for me to explore these ideas is through the traditions and culture that I know; through my own family history and experiences. The personal relationships between myself and my own family represent those on a larger, more public scale, between Americans and American families. the personal and the public.

places

my places:

places

places are a weirdly important part of who people are. the place that you come from, that you grew up in, affects you as much as the people you know. the way that places are arranged and the way you remember them becomes as important as the place itself. places are a weird and incredible part of memories and lifetimes.
living rooms, by Richard Prince:

last semester

last semester i left off with a series of images that were incomplete. i feel like the best way to fix them as a whole is simply to swap the weaker images with better ones. easier said than done, they must also fit well with last semester's stronger images.
the final critique of my work was a complete contradiction. the biggest complaint was that it was too personal to me, so others had a hard time relating to it. however, the images that people did like they said so because they were "intimate". so, my problem now is to be intimate, without being too personal. aren't those synonyms?