PROJECT : "It just a matter of looking the right way..."
OBJECTIVE:
Using your perceptive abilities, and the selective view provided by the camera, several photographs are to be made that give significance to aspects of your world that are usually taken for granted. An attempt is to be made to make a personal image based upon observation, evaluation, and conclusions about what you see around you.
REQUIREMENTS AND CONSIDERATIONS:
1. Even before you begin to take pictures, make concentrated observations of things, places, events, and anything else you see everyday. Look to see what types of ideas are suggested to you by what you see. What do you think of when you see whatever? How did what you saw make you think of what you thought?2. Sounds tricky, but it's just thinking about thinking. What and how do certain visual images stimulate and initiate thoughts and associations?
3. Based upon your observations and evaluations, select several which could make interesting photographs. The images are to combine your chosen subject matter (the things, place, or situation) with whatever idea or concept (the subject) you want to share.
4. Primary to this project is the concept that there is a "visual vocabulary" with which an artist can communicate. You are to develop and refine your own sense of connecting imagery and ideas in this project.
5. As in most intellectual endeavors, there are many approaches of solution to a given problem. For example, you might consider working from the specific to the general. That is, you see something (the specific) and several ideas (the general) pop into your crafty minds. Of these, choose one that has more than just trivial associations and design a photography which you could shoot.
6. With idea selected, it should be easier to decide what to include or exclude from your image. Consider if everything in the image supports your central idea, or does something detract and confuses the image.
7. If it is helpful, consider the following example.
You see two young people together, and they have obvious strong feelings for one another. You decide that even though the two people are "punkers" with unique hair-do's and eclectic clothing, their emotions are like everybody's. So, as an image, you might try to capture your unconventional subjects engaged in a very traditional activity. Perhaps the giving of candy and flowers. The image then can be said to depict a specific action or scene while referring to a more general idea or concept.8. Other examples of specifics referring to generalities would be:
- Brushing your teeth daily --- rituals and quasi-religious gestures.
- Pet dogs and cats --- surrogate children.
- Watching TV --- meditation or hypnosis.
- Photographs --- sublimated egos.
- Fruits and vegetables --- sexual overtones.
9. While images that involve characters, emotions, and situations of the "human experience" tend to produce the most emotionally evoking photographs, there are many other concepts that could be considered. These would be the more "cerebral" or intellectually orientated images. The subject matter would refer to concepts like color, design, textures, composition, dichotomies and contradictions, and other less emotionally involved subjects.
10. It should apparent, that one can make anything suggest anything else if the right conditions and relations exist. What is desired in this project is to find these relationships and associations that occurred naturally, or unintentionally. You "found" it that way. But if that urge to be creative must be satisfied, you may construct you image to suit your needs. As far as how much you can alter the situation to suit your needs, judge the results against your own sense of whether it looks "phony" or contrived.
12. As you should always consider to design your photograph within your time, resources, and energies. Don't plan an epic when you got only enough for a short subject.
13. Submit at least two different (2) images. That's two different subjects and concepts. Differing views or exposures of the same idea will not do. You may turn in as many as you like, but remember quality is more important than quantity.
Return to top