Tuesday, April 29, 2008

final probpsal

Halimat Salami

Photography 1.

Statement for Final exam

For my final exam, I photographed myself doing what I love to do, using shadows. For my final prints, I have pictures of myself painting, and I have some in my African attire. I wanted to use the shadows to show what I love to do. I love to paint, and I love my heritage. This final project was fun, because it was up close and personal. I got to literally reflect who I am. I was particular about using shadows because I can see myself looking at myself. The shadow represents what I see myself as, and what I want people to see me as. I did not show my face in any of the shots because the composition is not about my face. It is about my actions, and what I am doing. If I showed my face in them, it would take away from the composition. My face is shown in the shadow, even though I am backing the camera. I learned a lot about lighting with this project. It showed me that indoor lighting, with a plain light bulb is much different from having professional lighting. Some of the prints were grainy due to the light used to cast the shadows. If I were to do it again, I would try to get better lighting, so I can execute my shots to the best of my ability.

Monday, April 28, 2008

class tomorrow

Don't forget to bring your matting and mounting supplies to class (board and mounting papers - both available at TX Art). We will spend Tuesday matting and mounting our final project - and Thursday doing our final critique and assigned clean-up for the semester. See you guys tomorrow!

Monday, April 21, 2008

proposal for 20 photographers

Halimat Salami

Photography 1.

20 Summaries of Photographers.

1. Jason Fulford

Jason Fulford has been depicting "the simultaneous feeling of sad and funny" throughout his career. Born in Atlanta, GA, and now living in Scranton, PA, Fulford has a BA from Pratt Institute in New York. His work has been exhibited in New York, Seattle, Copenhagen, Budapest, Atlanta and Kansas City, and has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Life, Newsweek, Suddeutche Zeitung, among many more. His photographs have also graced the covers of books published by virtually every major publishing house

2. Lee Friedlander

Friedlander studied photography at the Art Center of Los Angeles. In 1956, he moved to New York City where he photographed jazz musicians for record covers. His early work was influenced by Eugène Atget, Robert Frank, and Walker Evans. In 1960, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded Friedlander a grant to focus on his art and made subsequent grants in 1962 and 1977.

3. Walker Evans

(November 3, 1903April 10, 1975)Evans was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans' work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera. He wrote that his goal as a photographer was to make pictures that are "literate, authoritative, transcendent. Many of his works are in the permanent collections of museums, and have been the subject of retrospectives at such institutions as The Metropolitan Museum of Art

4. tseng kwong chi

Born in the British colony of Hong Kong in 1950, Tseng Kwong Chi emigrated with his family to Vancouver, Canada in 1966 at age 16, where he attended the University of British Columbia. Before he left for college, Tseng revealed his homosexuality to his parents. After living briefly in Montreal, he pursued formal art training in Paris, where he remained for most of the 1970’s. Though trained in traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy in Hong Kong and western painting and graphic arts in Vancouver and Paris, Tseng Kwong Chi found his métier as a photographer.

5. Uta Barth

(born 1958 in Berlin) is a photographer who lives and works in Los Angeles. Barth was a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004-05. [1]

Barth has used photography exclusively in her aesthetic projects, experimenting with depth of field, focus and framing to take photographs that are suggestive rather than descriptive, alluding to places rather than describing them explicitly. Her interiors and landscapes engage the viewer in an almost subliminal way, testing memory, intellect and habitual responses.

6. John Szarkowski

(December 18, 1925July 7, 2007) was an influential photographer, curator, historian, and critic. From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He grew up in the small northern Wisconsin city of Ashland, and became interested in photography at age eleven. In World War II, Szarkowski served in the U.S. Army, after which he graduated in 1948 in Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He then began his career as a museum photographer at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

7. Robert Mapplethorpe

Born in 1946, the third of six children. He remembered a very secure childhood on Long Island, which he summed up by saying, “I come from suburban America. It was a very safe environment, and it was a good place to come from in that it was a good place to leave.” He received a B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he produced artwork in a variety of media.

8. Hamish Fulton

Since the early 1970s Hamish Fulton (born 1946) has been labeled as a sculptor, photographer, Conceptual artist and Land artist. Fulton, however, characterizes himself as a 'walking artist'.

9. Lucas Samaras was born in Kastoria, Greece. He studied at Rutgers University on a scholarship, where he met Allan Kaprow and George Segal. He participated in Kaprow's "Happenings," and posed for Segal's plastic sculptures. Samaras previously worked in painting, sculpture, and performance art, before beginning work in photography.

10. William Wegman

An artist best known as a photographer who has created a series of compositions involving dogs, primarily his own Weimaraners in various costumes and poses. Wegman reportedly originally intended to pursue a career as a painter.

11. Sandy Skoglund

An American photographer and installation artist. Skoglund creates surrealist images by building elaborate sets or tableaux, furnishing them with carefully selected colored furniture and other objects, a process of which takes her months to complete. Finally, she photographs the set, complete with actors. The works are characterized by an overwhelming amount of one object and either bright, contrasting colors or a monochromatic color scheme.

12. Joel-Peter Witkin

An American photographer, Witkin was born to a Jewish father and Roman Catholic mother. He has a twin brother, Jerome Witkin, who also plays a significant role in the art world for his realistic paintings. Witkin's parents divorced when Witkin was young because they were unable to transcend their religious differences. He attended grammar school at Saint Cecelia's in Brooklyn and went on to Grover Cleveland High School. He worked as war photographer between 1961 and 1964 during the Vietnam war. In 1967, he decided to work as a freelance photographer and became City Walls Inc. official photographer.

13. Berenice Abbott

An American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City architecture and urban design of the 1930s.

14. Mitch Epstein

His photographic work, which he has complemented with sporadic incursions into film and video art, is partly responsible for the New Color movement in the U.S. His early American photographs, Joanna Lehan writes, “bridge the gap between Winogrand’s street and Sternfeld and Shore’s big picture.” Epstein’s photography is conceived as projects for exhibition that are later recontextualized through their publication as artist’s books.

15. Brett Weston

An American photographer and the second son of photographer Edward Weston. Brett’s photographs often approach abstraction, with subjects that are difficult to decipher. He is best known for his work in the dunes around Oceano, California, a subject that he shared with his father Edward Weston.

16. Ansel Easton Adams

An American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West. His studio, which is still owned by the Adams family, is now the “Ansel Adams Gallery”.

17. Eugène Atget

A French photographer noted for his photographs documenting the architecture and street scenes of Paris.

18. Arnold Genthe

A photographer, known for his photos of San Francisco's Chinatown and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

19. Edward Henry Weston

An American photographer, and co-founder of Group f/64. Most of his work was done using an 8 by 10 inch view camera.

20. Edward Steichen

An American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator, born in Bivange, Luxembourg. His family moved to the United States in 1881 and he became a naturalized citizen in 1900. Having established himself as a fine art painter in the beginning of the 20th century, Steichen assumed the pictorialist approach in photography and proved himself a master of it.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

self portrait proposal

For my final project, I am going to be doing a self portrait. I do not want to take my face gull on, but I want to capture my reflection using a mirror. I have to use a tripod and try different angles, in order for the tripod and the camera not to show. My idea was inspired by the rest of my classes. I am trying to incorporate the idea of looking at my self in the mirror into 3 different assignments. For my drawing , painting, and photography class. The photography aspect of it will be the most helpful, because it will give me the visual that I need to be able to make the rest of my projects happen. I want to create several scenarios in which I am not directly looking at the camera, but at the same time, I am a part of the composition.

I want the composition to represent who I am, and what I love to do. First of all, I am Nigerian, so I want to capture my self in my traditional outfit. I love to dress up, and look pretty, so I am probably going to capture myself putting on make up, and beautifying my self. I also am an artist, so I will probably capture myself drawing, or painting, but my face is not necessarily the center of attention. I also might work with shadows, instead of reflections. I might have lights casted onto the ceiling, and capture my reflection. The tricky part is not having the camera and tripod show. When I get a good enough composition, I am going to relate it to my drawing and painting class.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Student Art Show & Student Art Exhibit

Hope everyone enjoyed the museum today!

2 things are coming up, and Thursday we will be working on them in class.

1. Student Art SALE
- Saturday, 4/12 (prints due 4/11 by noon to Fine Arts office)
- proceeds go to the HCC Fine Arts Facilities, and you get cash for your pieces that are sold


2. Student Art EXHIBIT
- 4/24 - 5/29
- your work will be on display in the gallery on the first floor, and there will be an opening for you and your peers


BRING AT LEAST ONE PRINT AND ONE MOUNTING BOARD. I WILL BUY SOME MOUNTING PAPERS FOR YOU TO BORROW, OR YOU CAN PICK UP SOME AT CAMERA CO-OP. :)

Friday, April 4, 2008

MFAH Visit

April 8th, 11 am.

See you there! Here is a link to the correct building.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

new look

I am still photographing tourist spots, but I am currently working on my tech folder, I made a few mistakes on my night shots so I will be re-shooting this week.