Looking back and reworking

I wanted to take a look at how the last body would read with a different treatment. In order to take a step away from issues around the use of color, below are a few image details in black and white:

Residency #3 summary

For my third residency, I brought a series of abstract cityscape photographs created with long shutter speeds and overexposures. My interests were in the forms, colors and feelings evoked by these experiments. Going into the residency, I recognized that the images had both strengths and weaknesses. The reactions and feedback were diverse. Some people suggested I go in a completely different direction while others encouraged me to go deeper into the work. The following are themes and issues that came up across the critiques:

Conceptual:

• People spoke about time, movement, irrationality, imaginary landscapes, digital stuttering, manipulated vision, memory of a place, erosion, and displacement.
• There is an interesting push and pull between the documentation of a place and the experimentation of the process.
• I need to be able to justify every visual decision such as the use of color or dyptics.
• The series is too formal and needs more varied content.
• How does my work relate to issues of postmodern photography? What is my postmodern strategy in the making or displaying of my work?

Viewer/Audience:

• Presentation is extremely important for this kind of work. It needs to be elegant to heighten the viewer’s aesthetic experience.
• I need to have a conscious purpose in my use of color without it becoming too decorative. There is a seduction in what it looks like but the work reads too much like a special effect created with software.
• There is too much white space in the images, however it is interesting to consider what is missing from a picture due to the overexposure.
• The work needs separation from the wall to encourage movement. I need to think about an immersive installation possibly in a circular room or projection.
• I need to look at artists who have non traditional display techniques.

Moving forward:

• What is my strategy and direction?
• In the past my work has included an element of social practice. People encouraged me to bring that back into my work.
• I will continue to use the process from the series in more varied situations with different locations, and interiors. This will hopefully add more visual interest and cognitive intrigue.
• I will look at the contemporary discourses around abstraction in photography.
• I hope to give up more control of the camera and use less technical wizardry.
• I will look at one location (the mass ave bridge for example) and take straight photographs with access to the people. I can document it as straight photography, and also find ways to treat it abstractly.
• I need to solidify the ideas behind the work to move beyond the visual effect and focus on the idea.
• In my artist statement, I need to be concise and draw people in.
• Blend art, photojournalism, social issues and postmodern strategies.
• Engage more in a personal conversation with my work and be aware of what the work in conversation with in context, history and symbolic meaning.
• Make as much work as possible that could be in my thesis show.

Artists/Books to research:

James Welling, Mariah Robertson, Robert Erwin, Mark Rothko, Jack Goldstein, Jeremy Blake, Marilyn Minter, Wade Guyton, Walead Beshty, Eileen Quinlan, Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan, Randy West, Vera Lutter, Uta Barth, Sze Tsung Leong, Liz Dischenes, Martha Rosler, William Eggleston, Arron Lish (Water Portraits), Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now by Douglas Rushkoff, Letha WIlson, Bryan Graf, Katherine Opie, Modern Art Notes podcast, Trevor Paglen, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Gilles Peress, The Cruel Radiance by Susie Linfield, Svetlana Boym, Matt Saunders, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gerhard Richter, Book: Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres by Andrew Darley, Photography exhibit at Mass MOCA, Greer Muldowney,Stan Brakhage, Archive Testimony Trace by Michael Newman, Miguel Abreu Gallery artists, Harry Everett Smith.

Pushing Farther

The images below represent the bulk of my sustained inquiry refocusing on this series after my last meeting with André. Picking up this body of work and breathing new life and energy into it gives me great enthusiasm. My other work with the time lapse feels more like an intellectual drill, fruitful yes, but as I pursue the series below, I know that it was birthed from solely my own personal experience and history of exploring the medium of photography. The nature of the work is experimental. I am searching for a particular look, feeling and pathos. Of the many tens of thousands of images that I took the ones below get at what I am seeking to express.

I brought these prints 13x19" to my next mentor meeting and we discussed what was working and what visual language I want to speak with the image. André encouraged me to look at the series for diptychs that have a certain continuity between images. He felt that the images that are working the best are the ones that move past being photographic into the realm of transmedia. My hope is to bring some of the past work together with these new images and produce more to complete a solid large format series that I can then exhibit. While I am closing in on a cohesive series, I still want to continue to experiment and open myself up to the new discoveries.

Putting it all together to pull something out

The next specific assignment André gave me was to look and my image archives and find individual images that represent documentary/external and then find images that represent the internalized search and put them together to create new meanings and visual language. I wrote before about the seemingly divided avenues of my work. Looking back on the images that I made over a decade ago before working as a commercial photographer, it felt like I had a much more cohesive vision. I then gathered images, finding ways to combine the disparate intentions into new relationships.
Captain, Ghost Ship, Water's light.

 Lupeni, Romania

 Student's Struggle; Santiago, Chile

Home After Katrina

Boston Marathon, Before the Explosions

Given a Voice, Chile.

It was in this group of images that I pulled together some recent cityscape work.

 André responded to these images more than the collages as a whole. He felt like this was the work that I should engage in a more sustained focused way. It brings together a lot of the issues around exploring the mechanics of photography in new ways. For the rest of the semester, I am going to focus on producing more images for the "City Spirit" series.

Importance of place and context

I decided to take the time-lapse technique that I been using lately to the "People's Climate March" in New York City. I was one of the over 400,000 people marched that day. I have covered many mass demonstrations including student protests in Chile which usually ended with clashes with the police. In the past, with the intent of a photojournalist, I ran around trying to capture all heightened action seeking out the most emotional, colorful and conflictual. This time I was more meditative finding places where I could set up the camera to capture the vast numbers of people. I initially found places that looked down on the crowd and towards the end of the march, I was right in the middle of street as the marchers streamed past and around me.
Fuck Climate Change, Pointing, Silence, Birds, Rising Tide.

 

Mentor update

This semester I have been meeting with André Ruesch. He has been helpful and insightful. We started off with an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of my past work. He gave special attention to my overall vision bringing out both the strengths and weaknesses. He has directed my thinking with pointed questions that have lead to new directions and avenues to explore in my work. He pushed my self directed studio work with new specific assignments. We began getting to know each other as I shared my career and general professional goals. He has helped me greatly putting words to the concepts that I have been exploring. Though our conversations,
Here are some of his thoughts from my mid-term report:
"Of late Mark has engaged in more conceptualized work, leaving the camera on a tripod and capturing images via time-lapse settings. This approach is interesting in that it automates and mechanizes the capture of photographs. It represents a form of empowerment by employing the same observational tactics that capture all of us on security cameras multiple times each day as we go about our daily business. Mark takes this further by deciding on the staging, the canvas in a manner of speaking, and then abdicates control by letting the preset time-lapse intervals impose the regimented rhythm of advancing time to inform his work and his viewers. The implications of abdicating authorship at a certain point are rife with questions about control, the illusion thereof, and the prized photographic “decisive moment” heralded as the ultimate measure of a good street/ documentary photograph and beyond. Still, though very interesting, the lack of authorship represents certain challenges. It is the quality control, or in Mark’s case, conceptual, editorial and sequential decision-making where his ownership re-engages.
Having photographed the outside of things, documented and interpreted them, Mark is interested in addressing the personal and psychological this semester. The dichotomy between the two, the assumption of authorship, and ultimately the integration of these approaches as a sustained inquiry rather than compartmentalization have been central to our dialogue so far."
One aspect that I have been challenged to do is to be more considerate of the place and context where I place my camera for collecting images. The images need to be more compelling with a tighter edit. I need to decide on my authorship and commit to it with deliberate intent. The viewer can't be left with too little. As I approach documentary photography in a new way, I need to find one aspect of concern and if need be, discover this as an editor.
I also discussed with André how I feel like I have two different sides to my practice as an artist. On the one hand I have an interest in documentary, portraiture, and the social practice. On the other hand I have a deep desire to seek and create meaning through a process of internal intuitive exploration. He gave me an assignment to find images of photographers that resonated with me on each side of the spectrum.
It was really interesting to plum the depths of my photo history knowledge to discover how certain photographers have influenced my thinking and my work.
Below are some of the pairings that I considered:

 

  

  

Gold to Blue

I'm exploring the opposite side of the spectrum, moving away from the street and society to look at the simple aesthetics of the changes of light. Below is a 30 sec loop exploring the passing of the "golden hour" into the "blue hour" shot from 30,000ft.