A Color-Saturated Sun Sets on Kodachrome

Frame 34 from the last role of Kodachrome, Steve McCurry 2009

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/a-color-saturated-sun-sets-on-kodachrome/

Impossible Project PX 600

Jake At Close Range

Blog 12

Metro Center For Visual Art, BFA Thesis show, Fall 2010

Social crowding has always been something that bothers me, however on this night it was somewhat fun, maybe its because I know many of the people at the show. I took this photo because I found the mass of people looking at the artwork in the gallery to be interesting, as well as the way groups of people would congregate to talk about the work. 

The Right to Bear Arms?  December,  2010

 I found this on a sidewalk on the way to a train station in Denver, many questions came to me, why was this here, was it a real gun, or a toy, and if it was a toy how did the trash for a toy gun wind up on the sidewalk in the middle of an industrial area on the way to a train station. The spectical of guns and the American attraction to violence is somewhat interesting and this photo seems to speak about the nature of that consumer appeal to something that otherwise seems so violent, and by all means is not something you would want a child thinking about.

Homecoming, From: Recollections of War,  2010

Homecoming, when you arrive back in “the normal world” from a deployment over seas the emotions of returning home can make the soldier terrified by  the reality of the home that was once so common to him, as if the world you left at war is somehow more normal to you now than the place you once know so well.  

Merry Christmas World From Bethlehem Ghetto

Tara Todras, Associated Press

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

This is where JR the winner of the 2011 TED Prize had posted some of his photos, you can still faintly see the large photos on the wall that separates Palestine and Israel.  The wall now reads "Merry Christmas World From Bethlehem Ghetto"

Need-to-Know (Basics)

The link below is an Art 21 Blog on art education that expresses many of the frustrations I have Had during my education and its lack of contemporary art. (This is not the case in all my classes but most of them) 

Need-to-Know (Basics)

"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life."

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON

Blog 11

AES-F Group, The Feast of Trimalchio

The Feast of Trimalchio,triumph of america, 2009

The Feast of Trimalchio, triumph of asia, 2009

The Feast of Trimalchio, arrvl of gldn boat, 2009

http://www.aes-group.org

The Feast of Trimalchio,

Trimalchio is a character in the Roman novel the Satyricon by Petronius. From the Middle Ages, first published in 1664 CE.

Trimalchio on Wikipedia


The Subject as Object : 
The Feast of Trimalchio makes the viewer question the human condition, the subjects of the photos are placed within the roles of desire, to own and posses the life we are told to live. Each of the people within the photo are allowing for a critique of that notion, they allow for the viewer to see how the comercial world exploits people and their desires in order to make money. The use of social stereotypes within the photographs allows for a better understanding of forced social image, many of the white people within the work are dressed in all white clothing, a color of leisure and wealth, while black and asian's are in traditional clothing. In some of the photos the stereotypes are reversed drawing attention the the placement of stereotypes in commercial advertisement.  Many of the people look as if they were pulled straight from an Izod commercial.  This work is a direct critique of this style of advertisement, and allows for the viewer to create their own ideas about commercialism and advertising.

Spectacles and illusions, photography and commodity culture
The work shown in The Feast of Trimalchio, both through the title and the images found within the body of work are commenting on the notions of wealth and power, and the ways in which people choose to live their lives when they have more money than they would ever need. The photographs have many stereotypes found within them, commenting on commercial advertisements for sporting apparel like Izod as well as flipping and intermixing racial stereotypes.  The people are shown within the idealized world that is so often shown in advertisement, as well as celebrity culture. This work is a direct comment on that life style and the desire to make your own life fit into this hyper real existence.
 
Sweet it is to Scan, Kodak and an imposed social role:
The work shown in The Feast of Trimalchio is in some ways commenting on the way commercialism and social class create this desire to fit a role. Much in the same way that Kodak told people how to live there lives during their free time and that a Kodak camera can deliver that life.  Now consumerist advertisement is telling you how to live through the clothing you wear and the car you own as well as a million other things you are told about who and how you should live. The work in this series is commenting on that pressure that is placed on people and the feelings created when you fulfill the role they are telling you to play.


New Work By James, November 2010

Highway 34, Brush Colorado, 2010

What does it mean to document something that is no longer new? Can you learn something new about the world from something old? I chose this photo because I think you can, you can learn about your history, and maybe something about your future. The things you think are great and new may some day lay in ruins lost in time. That place shows where you may have been or the life of someone you know. I chose this photo because I feel it shows a glimpse of what the world was like before.

Turkey Day America, 2010

How is it that something so good can look so bad, this was a great dinner and lunch and dinner again and maybe even again, but this is not how I think of thanksgiving. This photo is so telling of so many things, its family and life, necessity and gluttony, it is this wonderful family holiday that in the end leaves me laying on the couch watching football and yelling at myself about why I just ate a weeks worth the food in two hours. 

Puppy in a antique Ford, Road G. Yorke NE. 2010

I chose this photo because this has become something of a comical challenge between myself and a good friend of mine. We have for about the last half a year been passing back and forth this small greeting card with a picture of a dog on it, trying to one up each other with every new photograph in the process. We have the intention of publishing the work as a coffee table book some day in the future most likely when we feel this project has come to an end, as of now there are no deadlines.

Picture Black Friday

http://www.pictureblackfriday.org/main.html

Every year, Black Friday rings in the yearly holiday shopping season, with hundreds of thousands of people getting up before sunrise to queue for bargains and deals; when the doors are unlocked, the stores being besieged by their own customers. During Black Friday 2008, security guard Jdimytai Damour, was trampled to death by crazed shoppers as he tried to hold back bargain seekers at a Walmart in Long Island . Unfortunately, the uproar in the media was mostly over by the end of the initial weekend.

Picture Black Friday is a photojournalism project that aims to revisit and analyze a combination of forces- a worsening economy, financial desperation, excitement, fear, and a distinctly American cultural tradition- that culminate the morning after Thanksgiving.

More specifically, Picture Black Friday is an open call for photographers throughout the U.S. to go out and produce images that document Black Friday- how you see it, on your terms. Imagine this project as an open assignment: you have freedom to approach this event from any angle you wish, returning with single images or even a mini-project that documents Black Friday like no other media outlet will. A selection of these images will be exhibited on this site.

This project is the brainchild of New York City photographer John Saponara. In 2009 John partnered with Jake Stangel, founder of the photo resource site too much chocolate, and Joerg Colberg, creator of the photoblog, Conscientious, to launch Picture Black Friday.

For 2010 the Picture Black Friday project will be accepting submissions for one week, beginning on Sunday, November 28th through December 5th. Photographers can submit up to 5 of their best images of and about Black Friday. Photographers may submit a short statement to go along with their images.

After the initial submission period ends, the Picture Black Friday judges will make a concise selection of work to be featured in a gallery on this site.
Our jurors will then choose from that selection the best image(s) and the chosen photographer(s) will be featured and promoted through PBF and a variety of outlets in our network.

Our goal is to give photographers around the country an outlet to share their images on consumerism, the turbulent economic times we live in, and the mass hysteria that retailers and large corporations feed the American buying public all in search of the almighty dollar, be it paper or plastic.

Blog 10

3 photo By James

Unknown Artist, Arapaho Light Rail Station

I selected this image because this is one of my first experiences with found art, as i was driving to a friends with my wife I spotted this installation. It appears to be an interpretation of Jeanne-Claude and Cristo's work constructed inside the Arapaho Light Rail Station, it was up for about two days and then was gone.   

I have always found the look of people peering over a object to be both strange and creepy, this photo shows two people looking over a somewhat strange and yet elegant wall, one of them is looking down into the unknown and the other is looking at me, the feeling of contradiction between the lit room or object in opposition and the two people looking over the wall is what I find appealing about the photo. 

I selected this photo because it's been a while since I have seen Tyler, he is a former employee at Denver Pro as well as a good friend which I have used as a model in a few of my photos.  This photo reminds me of him and the fun we had a work, but also create a mood that shows many of the aspects of Tyler in a single photo.  

Hear are a few photo of Tyler that I have made over the last two years.

The Confession, 2009

Untitled, 2009

 Untitled, 2009

Untitled, 2009

Blog 9

From: Life with my dad

Swinging on Sal. 2010

This photo speaks both of the playfulness of being a young boy as well as the life that Asher lives at home with his father. I chose this photo because it speaks to the environment that Asher lives in, his creative and adventurous life. Sal, who even has a face, is the name that he and his father gave to the tree he is swinging on.

"Hurricane" Band Practice. 2010

Both Travis and Asher are talented musicians, they spend a fair amount of their private time working on writing and performing songs. Asher, the self proclaimed writer, performs, writes songs and lyrics, and titles the work. I chose this photo as a portrait of Asher.

Travis and Asher. 2010

Travis and Asher together. I chose this photo because I feel this is how I see them when I am with them, the loving and idolized father with his young and brilliant son who thinks the world of his dad.

Blog 8

Robert Mapplethorpe, Photo of David Hockney 1976

http://www.mapplethorpe.org
The subject as object, one thing that I find interesting about this photo is the nature of the pose, the reclined form with the crossed hands and arm low on the abdomen, legs crossed, in many ways this is the same pose used as far back as the Renaissance and Baroque paintings showing the reclining female nude. The pose is something that is classic to human objectification, but the look on his face, the clothing, the rough wood all works against the soft inviting nature of the reclining nude. The facial expression on his face is something comical, almost a statement of boredom with the viewer and their gaze, as he looks back out at us as if to say I am done with this, or hurry it up will you.  In this photo it is the attitude of the subject that becomes the point.

Allen Sekula, Aerospace Folktales, 1 of 51 images ,
2005, silver gelatin print, 8 x 10 inches,
AS119

Link to: Aerospace Folktales By Allen Sekula
For such a simple and elegant photo I felt this work is loaded with information, each of the subjects with it's own story to tell. The mother stands feet close together in the same area as the man both are engaged in some way, she looks as if she is undoing a button on her sleeve at the same time as the man checks his watch. The action of the two adults in the photos gives the impression that they are expecting something or someone that is now late, the look of the stance and the gesture given seems to be impatient. The young girl in the photo stands to the side, disengaged from the two adults in the photo, she is tossing a ball in the air, entertaining herself because the two adults are to busy worrying about the time to be productive or enjoy life while they wait.  The three of them appear to be standing at a storage facility, maybe they are the tenant of a unit or they are the owners of the facility and are waiting on a tenant, either way there is a hurried feel to the photo. This photo is presenting a social position through the subjects, the unwillingness for an adult to wait, while the child is still enjoying life despite the setback. This social position is created through the signifier in the photos, body pose, gestures and actions preformed by the subjects.




3 Photos by James.

Michelle, Sophia, and Kim, Carving a pumpkin

This photo is a document of the event, showing the three carving a pumpkin and having a good time doing it. We were over there for dinner and some carving. I chose the photo because of the mood that it creates about the enjoyment of the evening and simple social interaction.

Riley as a Blue Pixie. Halloween 2010

I chose this photo because it shows the fun loving nature of Riley, her love for the world and the joy of going somewhere and having fun.

This photo is of a fellow art student, showing a work of his on multidimensional with slides of geometric forms and audio of Carl Sagan, he commented on me photographing him and how it was as if I was adding another dimension to his work. The philosophical side of my brain was intrigued by this notion of a photograph be something of its own dimension.

Blot Out The Sun, November 2010

Blot Out The Sun, November 2010, Scrub Oak And Hickory With Wire. 52"x72"x13"

Installation View, Blot Out The Sun, November 2010, Scrub Oak And Hickory With Wire. 52"x72"x13"

Roddy MacInnes's Photos Chapter 3 Semiotic Read

Roddy MacInnes's Photos - Nina Weiste's Photographs. 1917

http://www.facebook.com/photo

JR, Winner of the 2011 Ted Prize

Face2Face - 2007

Women are Heroes - Favela Morro Da Providencia, Rio de Janeiro - 2008

Women are Heroes - Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya - 2008

 

View more of JR's work at 

http://www.tedprize.org/

JR exhibits his photographs in the biggest art gallery on the planet. His work is presented freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not museum visitors. His work mixes Art and Action; it talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit.

JR’s career as a photographer began when he found a camera in the Paris subway. In his first major project, in 2001 and 2002, JR toured and photographed street art around Europe, tracking the people who communicate their messages to the world on walls. His first large-format postings began appearing on walls in Paris and Rome in 2003. His first book, Carnet de rue par JR, about street artists, appeared in 2005.

In 2006, he launched “Portrait of a Generation,” huge-format portraits of suburban “thugs” from Paris’ notorious banlieues, posted on the walls of the bourgeois districts of Paris. This illegal project became official when Paris City Hall wrapped its own building in JR’s photos.
In 2007, with business partner Marco, he did “Face 2 Face,” which some consider the biggest illegal photo exhibition ever. JR and a grassroots team of community members posted huge portraits of Israelis and Palestinians face to face in eight Palestinian and Israeli cities, and on both sides of the security fence/separation barrier.
He embarked on a long international trip in 2008 for his exhibition “Women Are Heroes,” a project underlining the dignity of women who are the target of conflict. In 2010, the film Women Are Heroes was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and received a long standing ovation.
JR is currently working on two projects: “Wrinkles of the City,” which questions the memory of a city and its inhabitants; and Unframed, which reinterprets famous photographs and photographers by taking photos from museum archives and exposing them to the world as huge-format photos on the walls of cities. It asks the question: What is the art piece then? The original photo, the photo “unframed” by JR or both?
JR creates pervasive art that spreads uninvited on buildings of Parisian slums, on walls in the Middle East, on broken bridges in Africa or in favelas in Brazil. People in the exhibit communities, those who often live with the bare minimum, discover something absolutely unnecessary but utterly wonderful. And they don’t just see it, they make it. Elderly women become models for a day; kids turn into artists for a week. In this art scene, there is no stage to separate the actors from the spectators.
After these local exhibitions, two important things happen: The images are transported to London, New York, Berlin or Amsterdam where new people interpret them in the light of their own personal experience. And ongoing art and craft workshops in the originating community continue the work of celebrating everyone who lives there.
As he is anonymous and doesn’t explain his huge full-frame portraits of people making faces, JR leaves the space empty for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passerby/ interpreter.
This is what JR is working on: raising questions…

Blog 7

New Photography 2010

Alex Pranger
Susie and Friends. 2008
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/newphotography/


New Photography 1985 

Judith Ross 
Untitled, from Eurana Park, Weatherly, Pennsylvania
http://moma.org/collection 


I chose the first photo by Alex Pranger because I have always found the advertisement of alcohol companies like that of Budweiser to generate this feeling that beer can deliver you from reality and transport you to a perfect land of beautiful people with no problems and worries. This position of happiness is a striking opposition to the realities I have experienced in my own life when alcohol becomes a way of life.
I chose the second photo by Judith Ross because I feel like it's socially awkward, that feeling like something is off or strange about the relationship of the people within the photo. This may be from the striking size difference of the man to the children.   

Both of the works shown create a mode that is personified by the notion of an idealized reality. The first photo by Alex Pranger has the look and feel of a beer add where the women are created in the idea of what a woman should be as shown by the identical hair and body type, they all appear happy and enjoying the situation as if this one moment in time is the greatest moment and you can only join if you drink beer.  The second work by Judith Ross show the extremes of body type as a very large man sits next to two young children who are very skinny, they sit on a park bench the two children in bathing suits the older man maybe in his 20s waers jeans and a plaid shirt. The photo seems almost to be looking at adults pressuring children to grow up, or maybe the embarassment of acting like a child when you are older. The children look as if they want to leave the photo and go back to what they enjoy.
Both of the photos are of people and both show a social situation in which people are socially engaged, the first photo it is with one another and in the second it is with the camera as the people in the second photo are looking back at the camera.

Karen Rosenberg is wrong?
In the post modern idea on authority of authorship as stated by Barths and Foucault allowed for a reconsideration of photographic practice and discredited pictures of the kind deemed original by virtue of individual expression. Based on these writings the idea of appropriation of the ready made work became a movement within the photographic community. The new photography exhibition that resulted from this movement is now 25 years past and again there is a "New Photography" show at MOMA. The writings in the New York Times by Karen Rosenberg about the show at first look to be sound but upon further consideration there appears to be holes in the ideas that are presented within her critique of the show. The first point I find interesting is the notion that there is no transgression with the new works, to me that alone is a statement of complacence, the idea that there is no further need to question photography and accept it for what it is. In a sense, though I feel that the artist may have accomplished this because the new show appears to be copy of the original 1985 show under the same name, re-introducing ideas that have long passed. It seams to me that although the artist may not realize the total nature of what they are doing within the construct of photographic history, because there are many similarity between the two bodies of work. Rosenberg makes a statement about the artists caring about visual literacy and not theory, this is a bit hard for me to wrap my head around, the whole notion of visual literacy is rooted in the idea or the notion of the photographs relationship to the real, and the discourse that is created from this relation, its ability to tell us something about a certain place in time. This idea of reality allows for the photograph to transcend its physical presence and instead be something that tells us information about the subject. The work in the show, as stated in the article by Rosenberg, wants the viewer to realize the photograph as an object or as she states the physical presence of the photographic object, speaking about the color of the work and the open idea of nostalgia. This is fine in and of its self but you cannot forget the photographic subject, and further the idea that these are appropriated images, it seams to me that all photographs are appropriations of reality or abstractions of it, and to take a photograph and represent it is not telling us something new about the subject with in the picture, but instead just removing it further from its orgin and recreating a new or different meaning. This is also an elaboration of the how images are consumed and then re-used over and over. Because of the original intentions of the New Photography Show in 1985 and comparing it to the 2010 show I don't find there to be a huge separation of concept from one show to another and instead seems to be a further elaboration of the original intention of the 1985 show, it is not telling us something new about photography nor is it telling us something new about the subjects presented (at least not in the extreme that it appears in Rosenberg's description). 


3 Works by James
 

Custer State Park, SD
I chose this image because I have been interested in the idea or syndrome of what I like to call speed tourism, in this photo the man is looking to the side of the road as he works his way through the park but yet he does not stop, a few seconds of nature is all he will need to satisfy his desire to experience the magic of this place. It is at one end the American ideal of the road trip but at the other it is the speed of a culture that will not stop to fully understand anything.

Fort Robinson, NE.
This photo is of one of the guides on an "authentic" chuck wagon dinner, he was a good entertainer and the food was good, this photo is one that reminds me of that night and the fun we had up there.  I also love how disengaged the two elder people in the photo are both from one another and from the festivities

Mount Rushmore, SD
This was speed tourism at its best only this time it was us doing the speeding, 30 min in and out, although I found the tourist there more interesting than the rock carving itself.  This is one of the photos I took of random tourists, the girl holding the mountain, others looking at there LCD screens on there cameras, there was thousands of us there all in our bubbles ignoring everyone else, but than again I doubt that people are this crazy in "normal" places so for the observant it is a place of vast entertainment.

Blog 6

Zoe Leonard
Drop Off A.M., Pick Up P.M.
1999/2000
Dye transfer print
Image: 8 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches
Paper: 20 x 16 inches
Edition of 6
http://www.tracywilliamsltd.com

Sarah Pickering
White Goods, 2008
http://www.sarahpickering.co.uk

 

Yossi Milo 
Warrior On Donkey, Longxian, Shaanxi Province
From the series The Chinese
Gelatin Silver Print
1999 
http://www.yossimilo.com


How each work relates to my own work. 
Each one of these photos relates to my work in some way, the first image by Zoe Leonard is something comical, or interesting about the human condition, it shows a situation that is not out of the ordinary but because of the combination of text on the store front the work makes me laugh. The Second work by Sarah Pickering shows a time forgot, in this case appliances that are part of a past place in time now re-contextualized into a work of art that shows the beauty of something otherwise regarded as trash. The third photo by Yossi Milo also is a comment on society, in this case it goes against the notion that comes to mind when thinking of the discipline and otherwise stern outward appearance of Asia and its art, instead the men fit that role but the donkey is peeing breaking the seriousness of the photos and making it more intimate to real events rather than outer word projection.     

Blog 5

DAWOLU JABARI ANDERSON

Frederick Douglass Self-Defense Manual Series, Infinite Step Escape Technique #1: Hand Seeks Cotton, 2005. Ink and acrylic on chocolate, butter paper, builder’s paper, and craft paper, 43½ x 33½ in. (110.5 x 85.1 cm). Collection of the artist
http://www.whitney.org

AARON YOUNG
“LOCALS ONLY!” (Bayonne, New Jersey), 2006. Bronze and acrylic paint, 42 x 30 in. (106.7 x 76.2 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Harris Lieberman, New York
http://www.whitney.org

DEEP DISH TELEVISION NETWORK
Founded 1986; based in New York, New York
Still from The Real Face of Occupation, from Shocking and Awful: A Grassroots Response to War and Occupation series, 2003–5. Video, color, sound; 28 min. This image of an elderly hooded detainee in a house raid by U.S. troops in S¯amarr¯a was broadcast by DDTV before the Abu Ghraib revelations.
http://www.whitney.org

Response: I find that all three of the works shown above are created with the idea or vision of changing or elaborating upon the views of social issues, identifying how the main stream notion of things such as war and race are not always as they seem. The first by DAWOLU JABARI ANDERSON is identifying how race has been simplified and made a commodity of social roles, the second work by Aaron Young works to both demonstrate and critique art’s capacity to aestheticize extreme behavior and the margins of culture extremism.  Finally the third work by Deep Dish TV is an open source t.v. network analyzing the mass media and advocating for grassroots social activism. In all three works the intent is to identify a social and political position with main stream ideas, and attempt to inform you of a different point of view.

3 Works by James. 

Riley, Maddi, and Emma. York Ne. 2010 

I chose this image because it reminds me of what its like to go somewhere and not have a care in the world, it seams to be something I have spent a large part of my life working back toward, although I may never reach it. The carefree moment when the world is there for your taking, with good friends and family to share the joy. 
Life at grandmas is always a bit more fun, less rules and more play.

Don't Eat a Pool Toy!

How do you identify with what your wife does for a living?  I know very little about the specifics of medicine, but still find both the notion of surgery and the equipment involved to be very interesting, for me that identity comes through the creation of images, one day as I was waiting for her to get off work I shot some photos through the door, this photo I find the most interesting. 

Segway Human Transporter. 
Confluence Park. Co 2010 

I find the irony of this situation comical, how as a society can we justify not being capable of walking to the park, or further not willing, we instead would rather take a form of transportation. I feel this photo comments on the mindset of America and our new found disinterest in exercise, and to some extent blatant laziness. (By the way this devise is $4,950.00 that makes all 4 $19,800.00 to not walk a few blocks.)