1. Visual:
-It seems to be a long exposure with the subject moving around as she makes her work.
-Accompanying text was part of the series, so I'll add it here: As a painter in Cuba, you felt a little more at ease, with fewer pressures. Y
ou didn't have to worry about appealing to a large market, which gave you some peace of mind. You didn't satisfy pressing needs, bu
t neither did you create them. Cubans don't have pressing needs: after so many years of stoicism and sacrifice, we are able to live with just the basics.
We lack focus. I say to myself, "I have lost my focus; I have to change the way I live my life.
"Everyone hopes this will pass, that the situation is temporary, but when I wonder about going back, I think that I have emerged fr
om the womb and I do not want to return.
-It doesn't seem to be a very well lit scene, I assume the light comes from a window.
-Aside from the subject, everything else seems in focus.
-The photo isn't super contrasty in the book, it's somewhat flat.
-There is some sort of board with letters in the background, but I don't know what it reads.
2. Interpretation
Just by looking at the image the immediate assumption is that the woman moving around is the same who wrote the text. I can also assume that this was taken in her studio space, or living space (or both combined). She seems to be working on the board with letters in the background, splattering paint onto the board apparently. It looks like she's been working on this piece for a while as there are imprints of black paint around an edge on the wall. In her text, she talks about lacking focus. In this image, she is physically out of focus, so perhaps that is a way that Grobet tied together the pho
tograph with the text visually. Her space also looks very basic, she has her supplies and that it from what we can see. This also reiterates the idea that this woman can work using just the ba
sics, because that is what she's used to.
3. Research
In the bio part of the book, it explains that this is the body of work that seems to define or embody this artists attitude in
her work. This series takes exiles from Cuba and incorporates the portraits of them with their own writings that display their "disenchantment with the country they have left behind." This seems fitting for this body of work. The overall flatness of the image kind of adds to that idea of disenchantment for me. Additionally, it said in the book that her use of photography in this body acts as an important tool for communication.
Irina Werning
1. Visual
-The images both look old and date
d
-The man in the image seems to be the same person only aged some decades in the right
-She has obviously taken a lot of effort to make the images identical
-The image is too yellow
-Basically, the images look almost identical (save for a few details such as the print on the curtain and the details of the table in the background) except the man has aged and changed.
2. Interpretation
This image, and the rest of this series, shows the subject's old photograph and then a recreated copy. Even the expression and position of the subject is the same. It definitely to me has a lot to do with the brevity of time. In this image in particular, I almost get a sad feeling about the subject. So much time has passed, his hair is now gray, he has wrinkles and a gut. My first thought is "how cool!" but then I keep looking at it and it almost scares me.
3. Research
Irina Werning basically just had a fascination with old photographs, and always thought about how they would look recreated. She then decided to do just that. She finds people with old photographs that look interesting or show a commonly photographed scenario, and goes through painstaking effort to make them as exactly the same as possible.
1. Visual
-The image is well exposed and well lit
-She is naked and has obviously recently given birth
-Her baby is newborn
-There is a trail of blood running down her left leg, most likely from her recent childbirth
-The look on her face seems to me to be a scared one
2. Interpretation
As I mentioned, the woman in this image has just given birth and looks to me to be somewhat scared. Immediately, I feel very disturbed by this image and think to myself that these women should not be standing up! They
should be in bed! It is an interesting reaction, because many people consider child birth to be some sort of physical miracle. It is an intense and life changing process for a woman to go through, and it is a beautiful and sometimes spiritual process. However, when I look at this image I just feel somewhat ill, probably due to it's graphic nature. I feel that maybe the artist is trying to convey the reality of child birth, and the physical part of what it's really like for women.
3. Research
The artist photographs portraits. This series was a depiction of women who had just given birth standing with their babies.
Stephen Shore
1. Visual
-This seems to be a scene next to someone's house on a mundane street in Texas (it says Ft. Worth in the title)
-The place seems pretty normal, except for the wire archway that reads "MECCA"
-This place is obviously not "Mecca"
-It is well lit, seems to be a mostly sunny day
-The landscaping on these houses is not spectacular or well kept. This doesn't seem like a very "upscale" part of town.
2. Interpretation
The title of this series is Uncommon Places. This image interested me for a few reasons. It is a normal street in Texas, a place where many people don't even know what Mecca is. The archway itself is a little uncommon but I could see how someone would think it was a nice addition to their yard, decoratively. Essentially, to me, it's the words in the wire that are very uncommon, in this extremely common setting.
3. Research
As far as I could tell from the sources I used, Stephen Shore traveled around the country taking photographs. His photographs illustrate a sort of realism using color photography. He was a pioneer of color photography as an art form along with Eggleston.
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