photo 1, Painting, Photography, Family Photo albums

     For a (non-class related) series of paintings I am working on at this time (dealing with childhood experience, memory, obscurity, and emotion) I have been using old family photos (taken by my mom) as references for the series. Because of this I have spent a lot of time when home flipping through family photo albums. The pictures I am choosing to reference in this series have a connecting aesthetic theme (most notably atleast partially obscured adults (faces)) I thought I would share some of my favourite photos I have found here, since most will not find new context as paintings.

I like how authentic these photographs feel.

For almost all of these, photo credits to my mom, Natalie Evans.

 

photo 1 - Martha Rosler - Rights of Passage

 

Rights of Passage (1995-98) is a series of photographs by Rosler that picture (conventionally unattractive) places seen while travelling between Brooklyn and New Jersey.

I like the “grungy” aspects of this series, and really like Rosler’s work in general (especially Taking the War Home). 

This series interests me too in the lack of people present, which you don’t usually see in these types of photos. This may or may not have been a stylistic choice, but today I feel that attempting to exclude present figures from street photographs could prove quite difficult.. it’s not common to be on a street without anyone else present (or atleast that is how I feel).

I think the choice whether or not to include people in your photographs is really important. There’s also the in between phase (like Ralph Eugene Meatyard).

Rights of Passage was taken using a fixed-focus toy camera (a kids camera, likely from the 90s). I had to look it up, but fixed-focus means the camera can’t be adjusted, and likely has a large depth of field and small aperture lens(pinhole feeling?). On her website Rosler doesn’t mention why she chose to use a toy camera, but it has to be an important decision. I interpret this as seeing the beautiful elements in spaces usually considered benign - much like kids do.