Assignment 3.2 - 4x5 photo and enlargement

A 4x5 film enlargement on 11x14 paper in the style of Richard Avedon of Kort Woycheshin. I was inspired by the framing of Avedon (both film borders and subject in relation to negative space of the background) and the Western look of many of his portraits. I asked Kort to wear clothes that he felt comfortable in/wanted to be photographed in for the portrait. 
 

Photo II - Enlargements and contact sheets (as of semester midpoint)

 contact sheets made for assignments and for myself, and enlargement made outside of project work. 

Contact Sheets:

Enlargements:

Assignment 3.1 - Choosing a photographer: Richard Avedon

 After going through the list of photographers I was stuck between choosing to work conceptually with the photographs of Richard Avedon, Sally Mann, or Robert Mapplethorpe, but ultimately decided to go with Avedon because I appreciate the fearless/truthful nature of a lot of his photographs (could be called grungy in their subject on occasion even) contrasted with their high quality. Achieving crisper photos is something I need to work on personally, so I felt that Avedon was the best choice for me.

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) was (primarily) a fashion and portrait photographer based in New York City. Both of Avedon’s parents worked in the fashion industry, which undoubtedly influenced his career. He began his career through fashion photography, and at the age of 22 branched off into freelance work. A lot of his photographers were taken for the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar. Avedon was extremely interested in photography’s capacity for evoking the life of his subjects. He worked with Rolleiflex twin lens camera.

“He was fascinated by photography’s capacity for suggesting the personality and evoking the life of his subjects. He registered poses, attitudes, hairstyles, clothing and accessories as vital, revelatory elements of an image.”

-Richard Avedon Foundation

“My photographs don’t go below the surface. I have great faith in surfaces.  A good one is full of clues.”

-Richard Avedon

Dorothy Parker, writer, New York, June 17, 1958

Catacombs #02, Palermo, Sicily, 1959

Evelyn Avedon, wife of Richard Avedon, Petit St. Vincent, French West Indies, December 20, 1969

Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981

New York Life #17, Fifth Avenue, New York, October 26, 1949

Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981

Gloria Vanderbilt, December 17, 1953

Jean Shrimpton, Evening Dress, August 1965

Assignment: Holga

 This assignment was to take photographs using a Holga 120 Camera and create an enlargement from these. I shot two rolls of film for the assignment because I had some trouble getting my exposure times correct. My enlargement is a picture that I took of Sophia working in her studio, and I went with this picture because it had the best exposure of any of my shots (although it was still underexposed). Because the film was underexposed it made developing my enlargement very tricky in terms of creating decent contrast. To help with this I did a lot of dodging and burning on the final print. 

I really like the vignette that the Holga camera creates, so to emphasis it I actually burned the vignette onto the enlargement more-so than it was naturally present. I covered where the film was projecting on the photo paper with a roughly cut piece of cardboard to achieve the grungy black borders, which kind of reminded me of the space between each shot on a roll of film. 

Baby Fisheye 110

 

A camera that I ordered from Lomography (Baby Fisheye 110), I found their playlist of tutorials for it (picture above is a link) so I decided to post it here for easier access when needed.

Photo 2: Assignment 1 - Final piece

 

Introduction 12, 11x14” on glossy photo paper with pencil crayons, alcohol based markers, and paint markers. (digital scan)

Introduction 12 is a photocollage turned “drawn-on” photomontage in which I tore the table of contents from a collective Time magazine (showcasing their most popular photos over the years) and played on the chapter titles in ways that are satirical, critical, or plainly comedic. Numbers present throughout the scene correspond to the list above, like a map/game of finding the associated imagery. 

I added colour directly onto the photographic print because I felt that, when transferring my initially somewhat colourful collage into a black-and-white photomontage that some of it’s character was lost. I wanted to work with the colour in a messy, hands-on fashion, mimicking the chaos of the scene and the somewhat crude way the pieces were cut (it’s no Höch kitchenknife, but I did use a boxcutter). I feel that the use of colour also helps direct the eye throughout the scene, and I attempted to apply the colour with this in mind. 

I don’t feel that it’s entirely necessary to break down each ‘number’ of the collage, but in case anyone is curious here are how I interpreted the chapter titles:

The numbers (as I see them):

1 - “taking it easy” becomes a “peaceful” death - dying in sleep, euthanasia 

2 - making out

3 - we see “signs of the times” in violent youth - kids with guns and bats

4 - not far from home: domestic struggles, mindless consumption of media (shit)

5 - choice of addiction in heads or tails

6 - a child artist hard at work

7 - Alfred Hitchcock (tying back in to media)

8 - Gender roles, sexuality, and sex 

9 - pornography is “all wet”

10 - mouths upon mouths, shouting over each other

11 - contorted sporting figures: exploring the strange ways the body can move

12 - laughing or screaming?

Photo 2 - Assignment 1: More progress (Dark Room)

 

Dodging and burning tools cut out to match the text piece and the collage piece of photomontage

finished print. I had to do some extra burning on the right hand side of the collage area because of a light reflection on the original collage that the film picked up; it is still visible but much better than previous attempts without dodging. 

The next step of my photomontage is to add some colour onto this print!

Hannah Höch

 

Hannah Höch, Cut With the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, mixed media collage, 114 x 90 cm, 1919-1920

Hannah Höch, Untitled, 48 x 32 cm, collage, from the series “From an Ethnographic Museum”, 1930

Hannah Höch (1889-1978) was a German artist known primarily for her collages and photomontages. Höch was trained as an applied artist dealing with pattern making in the fashion industry, of which she began to use these developed skills to explore abstraction, which led later to her photomontages and collages. She is best known for her dada work from around the 20s and 30s, which largely are a reaction to the current state of Germany. Höch was an anti-fascist sociopolitical commentator, whose work, besides exploring politics and the industrial, also made a number of works focused on the ‘neue frau’ (new woman) in which she looked at gender and social roles for women in the ‘new’ and ‘old’ Weimar republic.

Photo 2 - Assignment 1: Faking it: Photomontage (part 1)

 For my photo montage I wanted to work with a chapter description page found in a time magazine by creating a collage based off of the chapter titles that’s both amusing and critical. I will then use this collage along with the ‘chapter title page’ to create a photomontage.

Prep work (creating the collage)

Photo 1 - Assignment 4 - ‘Diving for Pearls’

 For my final assignment I chose to do two series; one as a narrative/artist’s self portrait, and another in collaboration with Polina, a friend of mine who is a Ukrainian exchange student.

Contact Sheets:

Final Prints (Series 1):