More more more...

This weeks I had a few people critique my work, it was decently received I think. The visiting artist was the first people of the week to review my work. Alix Pearlstein critiqued my work last tuesday. When looking at my older work, she felt that it had potentially and that the construction of the images were good, but they were too overly processed. About half of them created a decent narrative, but the tableaux got lost in the construction of set images. She felt that the elevator photocollage was my strongest, but disliked the fact that just one little part of the image didn't sync up correctly. There wasn't enough intention in the interruption, and I do agree with that notion. She also like the stairwell photograph too, but felt that the area of the stair was too jumbled and lost her interest, but said that the image had the strongest narrative. We then moved on to the new work that I was preparing, my really formal deadpan work. She said that i had a really good eye and that I know how to compose a photograph, but that the subject matter seemed to cliched. Saying that every photographer shoots scenes of deteriorating beauty and infrastructure. Her favorite piece of the new work was one that, i wouldn't say I didn't like it, but it wasn't one that I was truly visually appealed to. But, she had a good reason why she liked it. She enjoyed it because the photograph was so mundane and so boring (in a sense) that she wondered why one would take that photograph, and made her search the image more than normal to find out why one would photograph the scene.

Also, Heide had an individual critique with myself and my work. I showed her my new work, and from what I gathered she liked the images, but they got dismissed really quickly because they were just a well composed photograph, they didn't incite the viewer to really enthrall themselves with the work. It lacked that narrative that she really wants me to pursue. She had great advice saying that i really need to absurdisize (i don't know if that's a word) the mundane. She wants another visual element to the piece to help question the logic of the photograph, and to keep the interest. I really liked that suggestion and I did that over the weekend. Buying props and whatnot to keep the interest of the viewer.

The most motivational part of my week was the advice that Heide gave to me, it really inspired me to create.

In studio this week i want to achieve a good critique, i want to find out where my work can go and how far i can push it. I want to get really good feedback and really solidify a direction in my art.

Ummm, I guess in last week's studio i got really good feedback from my work.

Profound thought related to my practice? Hmmm... Keep shooting with a circular polarizer at f/22 with kodak portra 160 vc on overcast days and 160nc on bright days.