Cyanotype Project

photo by Camela Gonzales

For my cyanotype project, I know that I want to put two images on one negative and create borders around them. The two images will be of similar content. I want my images to come out looking very similar to this image that I found on the internet (pictured above).

I plan on using photos that I have already taken, such as photos of downtown Macon and photos of Rose Hill Cemetery.

Collage

Hannah Hoch

I'm not sure what Hannah Hoch was trying to say with this collage, but I find the image pretty striking and hilarious. It also has an undoubtedly surreal quality to it- cut outs of heads are randomly placed atop the legs of two different women. This collage is bizarre, and I find the bizarre very intriguing.

Man With a Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera, 1929

I chose this still from Man with a Movie camera because it exhibits one of the first uses of the split screen. In the film, many other new techniques are explored, such as stop motion animation. This split screen still also is a good shot of street life in Russia- it gives the audience a glimpse of what life in Russia was like at the end of the 1920's.

A Trip to the Moon

Georges Méliès, A Trip to the Moon, 1902

I really love George Méliès's film, A Trip to the Moon. I love all of the trick photography throughout the film, and I also love how hilarious the actual film is. Before viewing this film, I really did not expect it to be so full of humor. The film still of the moon above displays this humor- the moon has an actual human faces imposed on it, and it is also hilarious that the space shuttle in the film has landed right on his eye.

Lumiere Film

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, Lumière Brothers, 1895

This Lumiere film of the train arriving at the station is my favorite. I like how the platform in the station in nearly completely deserted in the beginning. When the train arrives, the film gets more and more entertaining as people start boarding and getting off of the train. What also makes this film is interesting is that it gives us a glimpse of what everyday life was life at the turn of the century. This film lets us see one of America's great technological achievements, the train, in action.

My Cubist Creation: Apple

This is my own Cubist creation that I composed in Photoshop. I took photos of an apple from various angles, and then I used the overlay tool and arranged that apple shots into a pleasing compostion. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Photography and Modernism

George Braque, Woman with a Guitar, 1913

I think that it's wonderful how photography inspired the art movement of Cubism. Photography allowed artists to see everyday objects in an entirely different light, so it was really only a matter of time until photography seeped into the lives of artists, and, in particular, the painters of the twentieth century. For the movement of Cubsim, photography allowed artists to see ordinary things from severe\al different angles, thus artists began to portray these depictions of different viewing in their painings (such as the Braque painting displayed above). It's interesting how photography inspired painting in the early 1900's when just in the late 1800's painting inspired photography during the movement of pictorialism.

Pictorialism: Women Photographers

Anne W. Brigman, The Heart of the Storm, 1912, silver print

The Heart of the Storm is an incredibly visually striking photograph. The image is definitely very painterly- one can barely tell that this is a photograph upon first glance. This photo fits in perfectly with the pictorialist movement; it looks so much like a painting that it almost appears as if it contains brush strokes. This image is very powerful. Two figures are embracing one another in the midst of a storm. I'm not quite sure what the intended subject matter here is, but when I look at this photo I feel a great sense of sorrow. However, I also feel a hint of hope. These two figure are caught in the heart of the storm, yet they still have eachother to cling to, and that is where the hope comes in. I wonder how Brigman captured this image, because this is just such a stunning shot and even today this image would be a difficult moment to capture.

Pictorialism and Naturalism

George Seeley, Black Bowl, 1907

I think that this photograph created by George Seeley perfectly embodies the pictorialism and naturalism movements in photography. The pictorialists sought to create photos that resembles the paintings of the time, and this photo has a very painterly feel to it. The image is blurred, giving it a very ethereal quality. This photograph also relates to the movement of naturalism; the woman in the painting is very naturally posed and seems ordinarily human. The light source for the photograph also seems very naturalistic. There is no artificial light, just the natural light coming from one source.

Technological Breakthroughs at the Turn of the Century

Alfonse Van Besten, Modesty, 1912, autochrome

Kinetoscope, invented by Thomas Edison in 1888

The kinetoscope and the autochrome represent two technological innovations that really changed the way people thought in the late 1800's. The autochrome was the first successful colored photograph. With the invention of the autochrome, people were able to see the images they shot in color for the first time, thus opening up the entire world of color to photographers.

The Kinetoscope, invented by Thomas Edison in 1888, was a the first widely marketed machine used to view motion pictures. The films played when someone peered into the Kinetoscope were only one and a half minutes long, but they had a great effect on the viewer. Because of the invention of the Kinetoscope, the masses were able to view their world in motion.