The following images are part of my backup plan for the documentary project in case my main idea ends up not working out. For the past couple of weeks, I have been very interested in the recent U.N. climate report that has given a 12 year deadline on how long world industries have to change their coal emission habits before catastrophic damage is done to the environment (at least noticeably more than what has already been done). The Armageddon-esque rhetoric has sparked a more passionate and aggressive discussion on climate change, and many people are becoming more aware of the adverse affects of fossil fuel emissions and poor agricultural practices (sea levels rising, human conflicts, etc). With this in my mind, I have become hyper-aware of the trash and litter in Howard Amon park where I walk everyday. I like how most of these photographs turned out, but what I am really struggling with is the idea of making a documentary rather than a themed series. The concept of climate change can be quite abstract when thinking about how to photograph it in our everyday lives, so thinking of ways to express this idea in our area while simultaneously retaining a candid and natural feel is difficult. The majority of coal plants are on the east coast, so some creative planning will be needed to express obvious and recognizable iconography of climate change in our area through images. 







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Photograph as Contemporary Art: Chapter 3 Response

   Chapter 3, 'Deadpan', explores a photographic aesthetic which is significantly less dramatic and much more literal than the photography present in the previous chapters. Deadpan, as a style of photography, is more concerned with the subject itself rather than a photographer's subjective vision of said subject. The majority of these photographs are printed very large in order to highlight the clarity of the images and make an impact on the viewer.    One deadpan photographer that stood out to me in this chapter was Dan Holdsworth, who specializes in photographing "liminal spaces", or areas that exist in a limbo between the ambiguous and familiarity. Holdworth accomplishes this by setting up his camera for long exposures at night so that he can capture the lights of cars and streetlights as a luminescent landscape. His photograph Untitled (A machine for living) in particular captures something that could not be seen by a human, but still incorporates enough fam...
Read more

Documentary Thoughts

   Regardless of how my documentary turned out in the end, the experience of it has been invaluable, and the lessons I have learned from it are ones that I can apply to all of my work in the future (both in photography and elsewhere). If you had asked me just a few months ago to hunt down a stranger in a different town and ask them to collaborate with me on a project, I wouldn't have thought I could possibly achieve that. Although the project has been done for several days now, I am still finding myself thinking about it all the time, which is a clear indicator to me that the project was worth something substantial in and of itself.    I don't know why I care so much about Gerry Matthews and his little museum in Walla Walla, but I do. I found Gerry's museum through the website Atlas Obscura , and I was immediately intrigued by the polarizing reviews of his work. One online reviewer describes Gerry's work as "a weird collection of a perverted old man's garbag...
Read more