I may be mistaken, but I think it’s the midway point of the Fall semester. 1/8th of my MFA gone, 7/8ths to go.
Monday kicked off with Digital Imaging. Oliver taught us more about layers, adjustment layers and a little about making composites. I need to practice. Practice is really key to remembering everything we’re learning. I played around a little with gradients…very helpful. We also touched on clipping masks.
Tuesday in C&T we discussed the two articles that we would have discussed last week had class not have been cancelled:
1. Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Photography After Art Photography,” from Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation, Brian Wallis, ed., (1984): 75-85.
2. Rosalind Krauss, “Photography in the Service of Surrealism,” pp.15-56 from L’Amour fou: Photography and Surrealism (Abbeville Press, 1985). The essay is also available in this less expensive book.
Wednesday started off with lighting. Class was fun. We left the strobes alone today and played with flashes, both on and off camera and ring flashes.
Bruce High Quality Foundation came in to the department for a lecture.
Crit was good. I’m showing next week.
Past Tense, Present Tense rounded out the class week as always and what better way to end the week than looking at super gruesome photos. A conversation about Magnum and photojournalism raised the question about why there aren’t more iconic Iraq War photos and dead soldiers which then resulted in a slide show of truly horrific images from various times and places including WWII concentration camps, The Killing Fields in Cambodia, a lynching in the South and a photo from Imperial China in 1905 showing Fou-Tchou-Li being subjected to Death by One Thousand Cuts for murdering Prince Ao-Han-Ouan. After a quick break for coffee and candy corn, a fellow classmate gave a presentation about post-mortem photography in the US. FUN!!!!
This weekend…Halloween!!