Work-in-Progress #3

 

       For this critique I chose to explore the photographic medium known as portraiture and it's ability to capture the likeness of an individual or a particular group of peoples. As we have seen over the course of our study, modern portrait photography has made a departure from the traditional idea of the "portrait" using metaphoric representations and suggestion to convey meaning. I wanted to explore the different approaches that we have discussed; my final selection represents a variety of situations in which the individual is established as the dominant focus to those in which objects stand in for actual human forms.

       I employed an indirect approach for the image above; by obscuring the man's face his identity becomes more about the time and space in which he is located rather than who he actually is. I felt that this was a strong image and I thought that there was something quirky about the way that he is examining the half-eaten piece of corn. This image stands in contrast to the last image in this post, despite the subject remaining the same man that we had previously observed, this time his gaze is aimed directly at our eyes. This second image is reminiscent of deadpan style photography discussed in Ch. 3 of "The Photograph as Contemporary Art" by ar. The tone is impassive, matter-of-fact, and detached. It becomes the viewers task to create understanding and the photographers to convey reality as an objective truth.

       The image seen above, to the right, is meant to be viewed alongside the image below, left. I was exploring the role of the natural environment and manipulating the idea of who is the dominant being. Above we can clearly see the features of the girl's face, breaking through the corn stalks. Her mere presence affects the scene that she is a part of, whereas the image below reflects the endurance of the natural world. The person can viewed as participating in the scene that is occurring rather than the determinant of it.

The final image that I wish to discuss in this post will be the one depicting a piece of corn laying in the muddy water; in this case I wanted to see if an object could be used to represent an individual (subject). How does this image work on an individual basis? How does this meaning change once it is part of the sequence shown here?

Comments: Let me know which images register most strongly for you. 
Thanks for stopping by my page!