Mike's Photo Blog

Final Image

John Goodman is a photographer living in Los Angeles who takes captivating pictures of deconstructed realism. When I look at these photographs I start thinking of the stories that they tell and the emotion that each one of them have. The high quality of these images sink me in even further because if viewed on a large screen you just feel like you are actually seeing it in real life. The first picture 'Imogen' to me is the most powerful of the group, the girls bright blue eyes stand out in her dirty attire and I just want to know more of the reason and place that the picture was taken. 'Go West' I relate to because I love skateboarding and the picture gives of a very "California" vibe. The third image is also very powerful, the positioning, the detail, the exhaustion/pain in his face its just overall a great image. And lastly the 'Smoking Clown' I had to include this picture because to me it brings a sort of humor to the group. I really enjoy John K Goodman's work and if you do too I recommend you search for some more!

Overall these videos were defiantly different from the usual but for me it was not very enjoyable. I watched them twice and it was alright but its not something that I would just put on one day because I'm bored. The only thing I would say I enjoyed from this reading assignment is the second part of Ed’s video, the way he filmed it and put it all together put on a vibe that I would incorporate into my videos.  

Kara is a contemporary African-American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. Her work generally consists of room size tableaux of black cut paper silhouettes and they are really big. I really enjoy her use of silhouettes I think that its a very powerful way to get your message across by being simplistic. For being paper cut she really goes into a lot of detail with all the smooth edges they seem to have been made on the computer. The first picture has to be my favorite because it reminds me of something straight off of a Tim Burton movie. She uses a lot of symbolism and small objects in big pictures to really get her message across. The walls at the gallery are filled with these sorts of images. It is worth looking at more of her artwork.

Project 3

Dasic is a street artist that creates amazing large-scale outdoor murals, paintings, and sculptures all throughout New York where he resides. He has a wide variety of different styles but one thing that you can notice from all of his works is how they explode with color. He really takes street art and makes it pop right in front of you so that you can't help but to stop and admire. He doesn't name any of his pieces but the one that really inspires me the most is the last one with the man wearing the sky patterned cloth over his face. The detail and depth that he put into the mans face combined with the fact that it is painted on a brick wall just makes this mural aesthetically amazing. The one thats goes through the ceiling and into the wall reminds me of an illusion because it seems like your looking at one single picture looking up but in reality you are looking at an underside of a tunnel. Overall Dasic's work is very inspiring and has really opened my eyes to how beautiful street art can be. I hope he keeps making more and more art and inspire a lot more people.  

Copyrights are definitely something that we need to have in our society. When you work hard and put a lot of effort to make something you want to make sure that no one else takes credit for your work. With that in mind there comes a point where if its manipulated far enough, it is no longer your work and someone else has put a lot of time and effort to make it different and the copyright laws should have no effect on it anymore because it’s a completely new work of another artist.

Overall I am really happy with how my image turned out. I put a lot of hard work into it and if you zoom in you can really tell how much detail I put in. That's the reason that I only had the time to make one image because it never looked good enough and I would take so much time on the minor details so that there are barley any flaws. Its a pretty simple picture but I think that the message comes across clear. Its me in my own social media world not paying attention to what is going on around me. I really enjoyed this project and even though there are a couple things that would want to change if I had more time, over all it was a fun project.

I was thinking a lot about technology and how it has pretty much taken over our lives. When were on our phones we block out the world around us and only focus on whats on the tiny screen. Our friends, hobbies, likes and information about our lives are projected on the internet for everyone to see and its like we have a second life inside of our phones. Facebook is a great way to communicate with friends and family but sometimes we just have to put the social media aside for a while and just admire the real world. Don't miss out on the little things!

The other two images are just one single picture but he cut out what I would imagine the main subject of the picture is. The guy flexing his muscles has his muscles cut out so that kind of defeats the purpose of the picture being taken in the first place because thats what he's trying to show off. In the second one you want to know who the person driving is but that is also cut out so your left with a sense of un-satisfaction when you look at those two pictures. Joachim Schmid's work is very interesting and I would recommend going to look at more of his artwork.