Photography at MIT

Derek Jarmon’s Chroma: On Seeing Red describes red as a strong color, which I agree with, and points out some interesting patterns with the color red. First off it has many contradicting meanings: love and war, heart and blood, passion and violence, and more. One aspect that I resonated with is that red is a statement color and is rarely seen naturally. I attempted to create a strong, impractical piece for the photoshop exercise. 

To be completely honest, I definitely failed to grasp the overarching meaning/theme of this poem and didn’t really understand how the poems themselves related to their respective titles. After reading them, I felt the tone was slightly mournful, reminiscent, anticipatory, and even somewhat calm. The poem itself was full of highly descriptive imagery. However, I could only really form separate images of what was being described and wasn’t able to weave any of them together. The repetitiveness (even across poems) and use of rhetorical questions was able to convey a sense of urgency and confusion, though I’m not sure about what…

This was one of my favorite parts from The Fire Sermon, as I especially love the rhyming and rhythm:

“Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,

Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.

But at my back in a cold blast I hear

The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.”

At the MFA, I learned a lot about the photojournalism process: how photos were selected from negatives, by whom, and for what reasons. It was fascinating to see famous photos in the gallery and uncover the stories behind them. I learned that most negative editors were actually women, and this definitely surprised me that females were given such an integral role in the photojournalism process at that time and played a large part in the printing of many well-known images. One such notable instance was Peggy Sargent, responsible for selecting the best negatives from Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photos covering World War II victory celebrations. The fact that she also suggested cropping it to be the way it is now also highlights the major role female negative editors held.

The postulation that this photo was possibly an instance of sexual harassment was even more shocking. And having that fact brought to my attention made me pay attention to details I hadn’t seen before. For instance, that the woman being kissed in this picture seems to be holding a fork pointed straight at the man’s jugular and that the man’s arms appear to be aggressively trapping her head. This part of the exhibit and others like Alexandra Bell’s critiques on implicit bias made me realize the power that images held and how they can be greatly misleading at times.

The exhibit that resonated with me the most was the exhibition photos of the Japanese internment camps during WWII because it struck me as ironic that a majority of the images published were ones depicting civilians that appeared happy and smiling despite being forcibly removed from their homes, locked away, and segregated from the rest of society. The subtle racial bias and even the use of the slur “Japs” in the Life Magazine article published along with these images was also very shocking. The quote “They have everything except liberty” especially saddened me. It was also interesting to observe how the Japanese civilians were able to adjust to their new situation and make the best of it.

In addition, Julia Wachtel’s work critiquing Life Magazine’s “sometimes euphemistic presentation of U.S. ethnic discrimination” was a novelty. Her juxtaposition of the mundane life of the Japanese women and a painting of General MacArthur and her decision to compose certain parts of it into dots were cool to read about.

Cameron Crone- he focuses on the everyday things people ignore or often consider trash. The way he captures's them makes you wonder about the story behind what happened. I particularly like the picture of the pool of cigarettes. Make you wonder who smokes there, if they do it regularly or if it was over a course of one night that they all accumulated.

Emily Margaret Madison- uses a lot of reflective material for her art. I also like that her whole piece sticks to one color pallette. It's intentional but still very free and artistic.

Gary Green- I love the set of pictures that just focus on ice. There are two pictures of huge perfectly sculpted ice cubes. They are red and blue- playing along with heat and coolness. It's a very simple concept but the image is iconic.

It evokes a lot of thoughts about brokenness, loss, and death. It also strongly suggests that World War 1 really influenced the emotional collapse of mankind afterward.

I learned that photography can be very impactful. The photomontage (almost like photoshopping) that was done to switch the truth was very interesting and scary. I do think people are more aware that photographs can be modified and don't always show the truth.

Magnum was formed 1947 in Paris after World War 2. The four founders wanted to explore and do more independent work without constraints.

George Rodger:

South Africa- 1947

Nippies- teashop waitresses

People at shelter watching enemy planes. England

'Hilters Doom' England

[this is a belated blog post since I realized I missed this when we watched the film]

The Salt of the Earth striked from the opening scene, which zooms in to the gold miners in Sierra Pelada, Brazil. Much of the film felt like it wasn't about photography so much as it was an exploration of the world and of the history that Salgado has uniquely witnessed. It brought to my attention lives that I didn't even know existed (like those of the firefighters in the Great Burhan Oil Field) and created a greater realization of the problems that I had merely heard of in a textbook (like the exodus of Rwandan refugees).

My red-dominant collage is called "Ancestry" and is inspired by the altar cloths used in Chinese shrines, often to honor an ancestor.

My blue-dominant collage is inspired by the concept of "The Blue of Distance."

The film Daisies depicts the life of two women through a series of clips. One important aspect that immediately struck the anachronistic nature of the film where the clips don’t necessary go in order, but rather common themes, backgrounds, or themes connect the narrative. In the film, two two women engage in a variety of activities that perhaps stray from the mainstream and continue to act peculiarly in many scenarios. Furthermore, in doing so, the film demonstrates a clear argument or message against previous conventions and strikes almost a satirical note against perceptions of what if customary or what one’s view of customary are.

Red-dominated collage.

I drew on the bold redness of capitalism and its brand logos - Vans and Supreme, along with the eye-catching neon lights. I also included the red pigments of cadmium red and alizarin crimson. The woman wearing a qipao represents the celebration of red in Chinese culture. And the red sunset brings the sometimes ominous cast of a red glow.

Blue-dominated collage.

In reading Derek Jarmon’s “On Seeing Red”, I do relate to seeing red as a pigment. I‘ve painted with acrylics and oils, and cadmium red and alizarin crimson are such strong pigments that I only need a little to make something redder. I also associate red with capitalism, with many bright red logos and packaging (Target, Supreme, and Dorito’s comes to mind) because research has shown that red is attention-grabbing and attractive. Red is also a dominant color in Chinese culture, especially for New Year’s. Decorations, lanterns, and calligraphed banners are usually red, along with the traditional dress of a qipao. I don’t relate as much to the red in flowers or in symbolizing love. I shy away from the thorniness of red roses, and I don’t particularly find it romantic.

“The Waste Land” draws on numerous allusions to different cultures, along with evoking images upon images, shifting from one vision to the next. The first stanza describes spring as harsh and cruel, in contrast to winter. I‘m pleasantly surprised by this subversion of how the seasons are usually portrayed, and reminded of how I actually like the fresh crisp feel of winter air in compared to the often muggy feel of spring. For the second part of the poem, I have the vision of luxurious materials in a room, worth a lot of money but in an empty way. Then follows this more repetitive, broken up stanza in which “speak” and “think” are repeated desperately several times. ‘m unsettled by these stanzas, which break from the familiar format of the first part. There’s also the urgency of “HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME” which screams out to me amidst the conversational lines. This poem has many more images that went over my head due to the allusions that I don’t understand, but even so this poem draws on universally tragic imagery. 

I used both regular and magnetic lasso to outline the eagle and the crouching person. I used the color dropper, brush, and heal tool to extend the sky to the rest of the top of the canvas. Then I repaired the hair of the person with a clone stamp. Text was added with the text tool. Finally, I cropped the image, and flattened and darkened the image with the curve.

The calmness of Blue

The color blue signifies a sense of coolness and distance. Rebecca Solnit evokes this effect of blue in her essay The Blue of Distance. Reading the essay teleports the reader back to a time when Salt Lake still had water. A scene forms in the reader's mind. The sky is clear blue with a few stars and a clear bright crescent moon just rising over the horizon. You can see the reflection of the moon in the dark blue water of the lake which extends for miles to the horizon where it meets the sky. The author is walking, not on damp sand, but in knee-deep water in the lake at night. Everything is calm like the color blue.