Work shown at the 2nd residency

Home window: Sodium vapor night, dawn, tungsten light.

This is exhibited horizontally with 1 photo taken every 6 minutes 

Sundial Intersection: Pedestrians, Traffic, Subway

Exhibited in 6x10 grid and book

And as a slideshow:

Below are the individual images:

June '14 Residency Summary

For my second residency I brought a body of work that moved in a vastly different direction from what I came with into the program. In the new series, I was interested in the camera's recording of the aesthetics of the passage of time and observing an urban environment's potential narrative. The following are the themes and issues that came up across critique sessions:

Conceptual:

• The lack of control/authorship is interesting.
• Refine the structure of the process before collaborating with other artists.
• Define the process conceptually with what I am trying to accomplish.
• There is not enough specificity.
• Define what I want to say about time, society or surveillance.

Viewer/Audience:

• How much does the viewer complete the work?
• There isn't enough payoff for the viewer.
• There is too much information.
• The series need to be translated with a focal point.
• I need to define what I want the viewer to walk away with.
• Viewers need more help to arrive at the conclusion that I desire. A title and description could be helpful. The artist statement should more effectively direct the viewer.

Display System:

• It needs to be more polished and worked out with more visual dynamism and sophistication.
• People said the book was more effective.

Moving forward:

• Continue to experiment more in different contexts.
• What really speaks to me?
• Get more complex.
• Take more risks in the location with higher stakes and a location with more meaning.
• Be accountable for everything static detail in the frame.
• Think about the installation.
• I need to engage in a process that works for me.
• I need to define my engagement in social space, whether that be with social media, a local community, or public and private space.
• What questions do I want to raise with the work?
• What is the significance of the location, time, or people?
• What is significant to me with what I'm exploring?
• What degree of engagement do I want with the people in the photos?
• Find a way to have a humanistic sense with generosity and community.

Artists:

Julia Cher, Robert Frank, James Bolog, Jan Dibbets, Roberth Smith, Pierre Huyghe, Zoe Leonard, Richard Mizrat, Sophie Calle, Trever Paylon, TJ Wilcox, Martin Kersels, Alan Sekula Soo Kim, Louis Boltz, John Dicola, Philip LiCordia, Teh Ching Shih, Dan Graham, Nakahira Takuma, Theaster Gates,

Rick Lowe, Steven Berens, Ed Ruscha, Roland Barthes “Mythologies”, Judith Williamson “Decoding Advertisements”, Structuralist photography, Serial photography, Harun Farocki, Carol Squires “What is a Photograph?”, Wolfgang Staehle.

Semester #1 Summary

After the first residency there were a lot of issues to sort out, dealing both with my personal work and in general with the medium of photography. Being confronted with these issues that before I brushed off, led on a path to seek out a dialogue and revisit both foundational texts on photographic criticism and current day, postmodern issues around photography. Ideas that were of particular interest were photography's relevance to social practice, the believability of the photographic image, and the relationship of photographers to their subjects. My artist mentor for the semester was Christine Collins. She has been really insightful directing me to artists and articles related to my work. Her critiques have pushed me to think about the questions that come up in each series I pursue.

In my studio work I began by taking street portraits on the fourth of July. This was an emotionally charged public gathering after the Boston Marathon bombing. Among the crowd of thousands, I decided that I would ask everyone that was wearing an American flag if I could take their picture and allow them to present themselves as they wish. This was a good exercise to make some portraits within a system set up for myself. One particular striking image was of two arab young women covered with patriotic symbols. Other days I spent many hours on the streets of Boston and Cambridge, but there was not a lot that caught my intuition. While I am still interested community portraiture, I became interested in exploring new ideas and directions after synthesizing the critiques from the residency and exploring the issues that were brought up in my research.

One project that I pursued is to set up a camera in a highly trafficked public space and to take a time lapse series. The images were immediately uploaded to a Facebook page. The technical aspects took a lot of trial and error to find the right combination of programing. For several sessions, I set this up in the storefront window of the Cambridge community access television station. In the window there was a computer monitor with a timer and the last image that was shot. This allowed people to be aware of the camera and know when a picture would be taken. Ideally I wanted to slowly fill a gallery until every inch of space was filled with thousands of photos and have a gallery opening where the public would be welcome to come and receive the photos. My mentor encouraged me to just go for it and not worry about the end result. The results were not as I had expected. Most people passed by with out noticing or caring about the camera, and the social media aspect did not develop much traction. It could be that I need to work on better signage or publicity. Also I need to experiment with other places and possibly leave the camera for a longer time.


In addition to leaving the camera with a sign and timer, I also experimented with placing the camera in other situations without letting people know about the camera. The images show a public urban environment over time. The most aesthetically interesting aspect for me was the passing of day to night and night to day.

For my final meeting with Christine, I brought 122 prints from four different series of the project that I have been focusing on this semester. We reviewed many of the issues that we discussed in passed sessions including the idea of authorship, surveillance and privacy. Phillip-Lorca diCorcia series “Heads.” is good to contrast my work against. We discussed titling and different ways the viewer would react to the pieces. In my series of images there are hints of narratives with a visual conversation about the light. The works leave the viewer with questions with of what appears in the images and questions about what continues in the incomplete information of the set of images. Two other photographers that have elements of time in their work are Nick Nickson and his yearly photo of the Brown Sisters and the self portraits of Karl Baden.

We discussed exhibition options with huge prints of color fields and other walls with grids. We also talked about how to bring particular attention to a set of images in a series by moving away from a straight line of frames. There are layers of experiencing the work with a controlled and prescribed way of looking. There is an embedded anticipation about what will happen next. In one of the series I used a heavier edit with less images to push forth a narrative. We both felt that it was not as strong as the other systematic series. We discussed other places and ways to continue the project. I tried it at the ocean, but it seemed too simply about aesthetics. In urban environments, the stakes are different. Cambridge is where I live. I thought about exploring places where something of interest happened and looking at that place for an hour. Also would it be possible to bring my interests in documentary and portraiture into this project?




Artist Statement:

What does an hour look like? This series of work explores the passing of time in urban environments. After choosing a location and setting the camera to capture images on an interval, the camera is left without my intervention. Reflecting on the body of images produced, I am interested in the narratives that develop as time passes with people, cars and light moving through the chosen space. Privacy, public spaces and surveillance are some of the issues that the viewer encounters.

Each work is a series of images showing changes in the view over time bringing out the observational, potential narratives and simple aesthetics in the changes of light. Time becomes visible.







Bibliography:
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. Dir. Alison Klayman. Expressions United Media, 2012. Netflix.

“AP News Values and Principles.” Associated Press. Web. 2013.

Augscholl, Daniel and Jashbar, Anya. “Interview with Judith Joy Ross.” Ahorn Magazine. 2011. Web.

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1980. Print.

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction. New York: Penguin Group, 2008. Print.

Brook, Peter. Fred Ritchin Redefines Digital Photography. Wired. Condé Nast. Web. 2 Sept. 2011.

Connor, Kevin. “What Is a Truthful Photo?” Fourandsix. Web. 21 May 2013.

Dexter, Emma and Weski, Thomas. Cruel and Tender. London: Tate Publishing, 2003. Print.

Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph. New York: Aperture, 1972. Print.

Estrin, James. The “Shame of Memory” Haunts a War Photographer. Lens. The New York Times. Web. 9 Sept. 2013.

“The Field of Social Practices.” California College of the Arts, n.d. Web. Aug. 15 2013.

Fineman, Mia. “The Portraits of Judith Joy Ross: Not Just Faces in the Crown.” The New York Times. Web. 2 April, 2009.

Gross, Frederick. Diane Artus's 1960s: Auguries of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. Print.

Jones, Kelley. Dawould Bey: Portraits 1975-1995.Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1995. Print.

Kismaric, Susan. Judith Joy Ross: Contemporaries, a photography series. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1995. Print.

Loupe Journal of the Photographic Resource Center. Boston University, June 2013. Print.

Lynch, Janelle. Public Art: Its History and Reach. Loupe Journal of the Photographic Resource Center. Boston University, June 2013. Print.

Gordin, Misha. “Conceptual Photography: Idea, Process, Truth.” World Literature Today Vol. 87, No. 2 (March/April 2013)

Maenpaa, Jenni. “Photojournalism and the Notion of Objectivity.” Past,Future, and Change: Contemporary Analysis of Evolving Media Scapes. Ljubljana:University of Ljubljana Press. Online. 2013.

Mitchell, William. The Reconfigured Eye; Visual Truth in the Post Photographic Age. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992. Print.

"NPPA Code of Ethics." National Press Photographers Association. Web. 2013.

Photographs by Iraqi Civilians, 2004. Daylight Community Arts Foundation. Petapixel. Web. 2004

Ritchen, Fred. After Photography. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. Print.

Rosenberg, Harold. “A Meditation on Likeness” Richard Avedon: Portraiture. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976. Print.

Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Print.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973. Print.

Tojner, Poul Erik. “Preface.” Richard Avedon Photographs 1946-2004. Ed. Michael Juul Holm. Humlebæk: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2007. Print.

Thurman, Judith. “Heart Shot.” Richard Avedon Photographs 1946-2004. Ed. Michael Juul Holm.

Humlebæk: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2007. Print.

Walden, Scott. Photography and Philosophy: Essays on the Pencil of Nature. West Sussex: Wiley- Blackwell, 2010. Print.

“Wendy Ewald.” Literacy Through Photography. Center for Documentary Studies. Duke

University, n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2013

Exhibits:

Museum of Fine Arts. She Who Tells a Story: Women photographers from Iran and the Arab world, Boston, Sept 20, 2013.

Photographic Resource Center. Framed: Identity and the Photographic Portrait. Boston, Sept 21, 2013.

RISD Museum. General Collection. Providence, Nov 7, 2013.

Gallery at the New England of School of Photography. Miah Nate Johnson: Perceptions Garner. Boston, October 16th.

808 Gallery. 2013 Boston Young Contemporaries. Boston,

Boston Printmakers North American Print Biennial

Barrington Center for The Arts. Recent Work: Faculty and Alumni Exhibit. Wenham, Sept 5, 2013.

MIT Museum. Joël Tettamanti: Compass Points. Cambridge, August 15, 2013.




Artist Talks:

Mary Ellen Mark, Boston University Sept 26, 2013

Mark Dion, Boston Public Library October 29th




Also referenced:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/stunning-timelapse-video-shows-young-girl-aging-elderly-woman-article-1.1455387
http://www.thephotographsnottaken.com/
http://www.unphotographable.com/
Alec Soth: http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/niagara
http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/07/31/war-photographers
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/the-shame-of-memory-haunting-war-photographers/
http://mediastorm.com/clients/ripple-effect-images
Documentary on JR's worldwide collaborative project: "Inside Out: the People's Art Project."

Conscientious Photography Magazine: http://cphmag.com/

Brian Schumat's photo series: "Grays the Mountain Sends" http://www.bryanschutmaat.com/



Arnes Svenson series, "The Neighbors" http://arnesvenson.com/theneighbors.html and the following court case http://blogs.nppa.org/advocacy/2013/08/05/photographer-prevails-in-first-amendment-vs-privacy-case/
Michael Wolf's curation of google street view images. http://photomichaelwolf.com/#paris-street-view/1
documentary: "102 Minutes that Changed America"
Hitchcock's "Rear window"
http://www.paulgrahamarchive.com/possibility.html#a and his book "The present" How little moments change with space and time.
Chauncey Hare, "Interior America" and "Corporate America"

Artists' links that I have been considering

The Fine Art of Spying:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324094704579065123679605360?mg=reno64-wsj.html?dsk=y


video portrait animation of a woman aging:

Danielle from Anthony Cerniello on Vimeo.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/stunning-timelapse-video-shows-young-girl-aging-elderly-woman-article-1.1455387


http://www.thephotographsnottaken.com/
http://www.unphotographable.com/

Alec Soth:
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/niagara

War Photography:
regarding the pain of others
http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/07/31/war-photographers
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/the-shame-of-memory-haunting-war-photographers/

http://mediastorm.com/clients/ripple-effect-images
Documentary on JR's worldwide collaborative project:  "Inside Out: the People's Art Project."

First meeting with my artist mentor

My artist mentor is Christine Collins
We started talking about what I have been thinking about and researching.
Works that came up that I need to take a look at:
Martha Rosler's essay "In Around and Afterthoughts (on Documentary Photography)"
Photography At The Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices (Media and Society) two essays: "Who is Speaking Thus" and "Reconstructing Documentary"
Brian Schumat's photo series: "Grays the Mountain Sends" http://www.bryanschutmaat.com/  Mixture of landscapes and portraits sequenced to interact with each other.
When speaking about my older work, she said that I need to let the space to more work adding extra details to a portrait.  What is the tension?  Let the space speak.  I limit their story.  Color would have said more.
She gave me an assignment:  Find somebody I'm interested in and produce three images

1.  Make an environmental portrait that means something.  I need to be thoughtful about what the place means
2. Then photograph mid-distance with a little context
3. Then photograph with a simple backdrop or background.

I need to think not about what the person's experience is, but what I want to viewers experience to be.
I should pick the place or have them pick the place that is the most comfortable.  I need to control and decide everything.

We also talked through some of my ideas for my next project.  The place is important.  I will be totally giving myself up not controlling who is in the picture.  I still need to work out how exactly it will be enacted.  Should I have instructions to guide people?  Issues of privacy, surveillance and closed circuit TV come up.  We are photographed without consent whenever we are in a public urban environment.

She encouraged me to come up with a thesis for the project.  If I.........then I imagine.....to happen"
Thesis: If I set up a camera in a highly trafficked public space to take time lapse photos and post them to social media, then I imagine that people will respond to the camera in a large variety of ways from avoidance to exhibitionist.

She encouraged me to explore this in two veins:

1. Letting people know and give instructions
2. Not letting people know and see what happens in front of the camera.

She also suggested to just try out the project without worrying too much how the final visuals or exhibition would be worked out.

We spoke some about the legalities and about Arnes Svenson series, "The Neighbors"  http://arnesvenson.com/theneighbors.html and the following court case http://blogs.nppa.org/advocacy/2013/08/05/photographer-prevails-in-first-amendment-vs-privacy-case/
Other works that can up:
Michael Wolf's curation of google street view images. http://photomichaelwolf.com/#paris-street-view/1
documentary: "102 Minutes that Changed America" made from archival footage.
Hitchcock's "Rear window"  Take notes on when there is an exchange of power and how looking or photographing effects that.
http://www.paulgrahamarchive.com/possibility.html#a and his book "The present"  How little moments change with space and time.
Chauncey Hare, "Interior America" and "Corporate America"
Judith Joy Ross's portraits

New Directions

After the critiques and research that I have been doing, I am interested in exploring some new ideas and directions.  I am continuing to work with community portraits but in a different way. The idea is to set up a camera in a highly trafficked public space to shoot a time lapse.  I would like to have people be aware the camera and know when a picture will be taken (maybe with a timer) to see how they react to the camera. The images will then be immediately uploaded to social media.  I have been working out the technical aspects, finding the right combination of programing.  Ideally I would set this up in a storefront window for a period of time and slowly fill a gallery until every inch of wall was filled with thousands of 4x6in photos.  The project would culminate with a gallery opening where the public would be welcome to come and receive the photos of themselves. The challenge is finding an appropriate space and getting permission from the building owner.  I realize there will be a variety of issues, questions and dialogue around this project.
Below are some tests for the visuals:
1 day:

Taken from my front window and uploaded to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/101042494@N08/
and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Community-Access-Photobooth/334578120011234
Each row is one hour.

1 month

Collage compiled from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDDq97ZonaE

1 year:

Images compiled from: http://eirikso.com/2011/01/05/one-year-in-2-minutes/  cc 3.0 nc.
Each row is one month.

First Residency Summary

First Residency Summary Group 1

In the critiques I spoke about my interest in community narratives, and each critique leader brought their own response to the way my ideas were visualized. The following are the themes and questions that came up across multiple sessions:

• What is my voice and my sensibility? What unifies the work?

• How do the images live in the community? Is it through a public exhibition system? 

• Some of the expressions of the people in the portraits feel controlled or guarded, and I need

more psychologically charged and unguarded expressions. 

• What are my responsibilities as an artist to the community? Is it possible to accomplish this

without losing my voice, purpose, and sensibility? 

• Have a greater understanding of the history, ideas and issues of the documentary tradition. • Consider the ethics of photographing other people and cultures. 

• Move past traditional portraiture and documentary to something more conceptual.

Artists that came up multiple times were, Martha Rosler, “The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems”, Rineke Dijkstra, and JR.

I was a bit nervous at the first critique, but it was good to stand in front of three projects that I was proud of in which I had invested a lot of time and energy. People said that I capture a dignified earnestness in the portraits. This is the voice and sensibility that I bring to the work, but it may not be enough in a fine art postmodern context.

In general the installation of the Gloucester portraits at the lobster warehouse on the harbor was received very positively. I need to continue to think about where images can live and what their relation to people can be. If it is for the community, then it needs to be of relevance to them so that people don't become specimens in a gallery.

Some issues were brought up around photographing people. There is always a potential of an exploitative outsider looking in without giving anything back. For the most part I have found a way to make the photos alive in the community while also documenting the community. While I am aware of historical documentary traditions, how do can I do it today without being exploitative? The challenge is to accommodate their expectations, but also have a more experiential dimension. One reviewer said that the images should not necessarily be about the subjects. The photos should be about me and how I see the subjects.

Other problems photographing people is they present guarded expressions or a smiling face just standing and looking at the camera. We discussed techniques of getting images past that such as building trust, catching an unguarded moment, or getting a psychological response. How much control should be used producing the image? There was disagreement on the lighting used in the portraits. Some felt that it added an additional dimension, while others said it felt too charming, too prescribed, too idealized. Another instructor challenged me to have less control and allow some system to dictate the way the imagery is produced. Also, there is a trend shifting away from the tradition representational documentary photography opening other ways of portraying communities and groups of people.

Two additional projects that I brought with me for critiques did not generate very much discussion. One was a series of documentary images from student protests in Chile, and the other was a series of abstract cityscapes. These two projects are not where I want to focus my energies for this program. While I may return to the visual language used I would rather deepen my understanding of portraiture.

Moving forward, I need to take into account the ubiquitousness of cameras and the millions of photos flowing through social media everyday. Social media needs to be incorporated into any community photographic project which includes social practice.

What do I what to keep from the work, and what do I what to let go of? I have worked hard on many projects and have published thousands of images, but quantity and hard work are not enough. I need to be more thoughtful about my artwork. What I want to keep from the work is the aspect of relevance and accessibility to the general public not just making photos that are for gallery viewers and just a discourse about art. I need to research how contemporary artists have dealt with social documentary photography. I want to keep a documentary impulse and a social dimension while continuing to experiment with audience.

Artists: Stefan Maria Rother who published books devoted to one street of Berlin at a time. Edward Rucha's book, “Every Building on the Sunset Strip”, Suzanne Lacy In Morning and in Rage Catherine Opie Sharon Hayes Jeremy Deller's, “The Battle of Orgeave"a contemporary investigation of a deep historical wound and his installation in the British pavilion of the 2013 Venice Biennale.

Rineke Dijkstra, Wolfgang Tillmans, Dan Graham, Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand. James Casebere, Carrie Mae Weems, Book of photographs crowd sourced form 9-11 Taryn Simon's “The Innocents”

Wendy Ewald Dawoud Bey Alan Lomax Roni Horn Andreas Gersky Edward Burtynsky photographs and film "Manufactured Landscapes” Garry Winogrand street photos in the 60s,

Harry Callahan's Chicago Street images Broomberg & Charnin exposing emulsified paper to the environment in Afghanistan August Sander Magnum photographer Gio Perez. Photo essays "OHIO" Alec Soth. Sleeping by the Mississippi & Niagara. Bruce Davidson East 100th Street