Questions #11-15

#11____Memory of a Place: Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description.

A place that I would like to describe to you is the peak district in South Yorkshire of England. I have pictures of it. Everything is a very bright green color. And the hills seem to go on forever and ever. I think the place has looked the same for many many years and will continue to look that way for a long long time. In the photograph I am standing in the front of the image with the beautiful surroundings behind me. There is a large lake crystal clear and beautiful.

#12____Memory of a Photograph: Which photograph from your past do you remember most? Describe this photograph. Describe how it makes you feel when you remember/think about this photograph. How have you changed? How has the place in this photograph changed? What would a reenactment of this photograph look like? Would you act or look differently if you reenacted this scene today?

A photograph that I have a good memory of is when I was in New York City with my two best friends and my wife. We were in soho in a sunglasses shop and I took a photo of them trying on photographs. I think that the people in photograph would have changed a little bit and the store would definitely have different sunglasses. I think that a reenactment would be a really fun. We could really make the photograph even more fun and exciting. In the actual photograph it is pretty fun and exciting.

#13____Human-Made Space: In the past, photographers who were interested in how humans impacted the natural landscape grouped together to form the New Topographics. “"New Topographics" signaled the emergence of a new photographic approach to landscape: romanticization gave way to cooler appraisal, focused on the everyday built environment and more attuned to conceptual concerns of the broader art field.” http://www.lacma.org/art/ExhibTopo.aspx

In addition, at the same time in history artists created (and still do create) “land art” in which they use materials found in the landscape to make sculptures that remain in the landscape. Many of these works now only exist as video recordings and photographic documents.

Pay attention to the number of ways in which you encounter humans’ interaction with nature and the physical land. Write these down. Using these as inspiration, describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might create that would be documented by a photograph. Describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might make in a man-made landscape that would be documented by a photograph.

I think what could be really interesting is to take a piece of land that has been strip mined and then alter it making it a city or livable environment. I think it would be interesting to see how homes would be formed, roads and bridges would be integrated and and natural habitat could be reintroduced.

#14____Unknown vs. Familiar Space: When photography was invented, it became a way to document and reveal the specific aspects of both familiar and faraway places. Imagine a familiar place. Imagine a faraway place. How would you use photographs to convey the difference? Can you imagine any places that have been “touched” very little by humans? How might you photograph them?

I think some of the only places that have been touched very little by humans would be under water in the oceans and outer space. I think that I would try and photograph the expanse of their space and how large and grand they are.

#15____Collage: Collage brings together two or more items that were previously separate. The resulting piece usually visually references the fact that they were once separate entities. Imagine an important place in your past. Imagine an important place in your present. Imagine who you were in both of these past and present places. Describe two photographs that you might take that could be collaged together to tell a new narrative about these important places and how they relate to who you are and were.

I think and an interesting collage of a place past and present were when i was very little and me as a collage adult. I think the stark contrast of what I used to look like and what I look like now are so very different. I think of places in which I used to live. When I was little I used to live on a small farm, and now I live in a small apartment. To maybe collage my grown up self at the farm and my small young self in the apartment would be an interesting contrast of who I was and who I have become.