Cardboard Atari Controller

Here are a few large shots and detail pictures of my cardboard sculpture. It's not the best, and I'd redo the base if I had the time and the cardboard. I like it, though. It's eighteen times the size of the actual controller.

From Panopticon

From Panopticon

From Panopticon

From Panopticon

From Panopticon

The Curse

Here's my video, it's pretty much finish. I don't want to say anything about it, just see what people get out of the project.

William Eggleston

William Eggleston was born in Memphis, Tennessee on July 27, 1939. At the age of 18, he received his first camera, a Canon rangefinder. One year later, he got a Leica camera, a German make. His only real experience with photographs was in magazines of the 1950’s until he saw a collection of photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evan’s American Photographs. In the 1960’s, Eggleston daringly began to shoot exclusively in color. In this era, shooting exclusively in color was unheard of. Most people previous used color for ornamental purposes or for striking advertisements. Eggleston, however, did not photograph unusual or immediately interesting objects. Instead, in his own words, “I like to take a picture wherever [I] happen to be, whatever is going on.” Interestingly, he visited Japan, but did not photograph. He remarks that “setting out to photograph a country or a place or a continent, that’s not the way I go about things.” He has photographed in Egypt and Africa, but did not go to intentionally do so. In short, Eggleston takes pictures of ordinary subjects, often photographing things as simple as empty Coca-Cola bottles, old pay phones, mildewed showers, and old shoes under a bed.

His work is incredibly uncommon. Who would take pictures of bags of trash, and then the same day, take a picture of fresh food in a freezer? One subject that Eggleston does not photograph often, however, is people. “People in general are not that attractive.” Instead, there is an entire book filled with Eggleston’s photos of dogs and horses. “You don’t see very many ugly dogs.”

Most of Eggleston's series are not narratives, but instead are photographs of similar things. Because Eggleston shoots inanimate objects more often than people or animals, it is hard to create a narrative from this. Instead, he will shoot several photos of stairs in Louisiana. Not grand, ornate staircases, but a series of steps, maybe only three or four step that are weather-beaten and clearly used. Or, it may be pictures of flowers that are not arranged in a beautiful bouquet. Instead, these flowers are wilted, decaying, sitting in front of a grave. There is nothing traditionally beautiful about this photo, except in a somber, melancholy way. But this is not how Eggleston operates. He does not shoot to say "here, look at this, it is a beautiful thing I have found in a forgotten pathway." Instead, he takes photos to say "here, look at this average thing I have found. Maybe you overlooked it, but take another look, if you'd like to."

The closest thing to a narrative is Eggleston's series of Graceland, Elvis’s estate, which he was asked to do in 1983. There are several photos of Elvis's ornate house, the golding shining curtains and other artifacts, but also, there is a single photo with stands out all the more because it is not eye-catching or distinctive. The photograph is of an ugly stone wall, random stones shoved together rather hastily it appears. Covering this wall are the scrawling of fans with whatever they had to write with, whether it was paint or a Sharpie. Right in the middle is a message that says “I love you tender L. M. 7-16-83.” With this one photo, Eggleston shows us much more than he could simply by shooting the interior of Graceland. He shows us a partial glimpse into the effect that Elvis had on America. Eggleston does not shoot the pretty or the pristine. Instead, we see the William Eggleston shoots the world as it truly is. He shoots the empty paint can, the abandoned gasoline pump, the abandoned peach stand. And this becomes fantastic photography.

Final Lyrics Poster

From Panopticon

This is my final poster for the song Love is the Movement, available here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr1ZW_KpQoU

Check it out, and tell me what you think of the poster and how it relates to the song. I really tried to incorporate image and text together, so you couldn't tell where one part of the text began, and the image ends. I wish I had more time to put more detail into the image. I really like the blue swirls and I'd like to see more of that.

Early Concept

From Panopticon

This is an early concept for my lyrics poster for Digital. I played around with a few ideas, working mostly with the word Revolution. This one didn't have as much potential as one of the others did, in my opinion. I'll be posting my final next week.

Design Photography

For design, we have to take photos of objects that look like letters. Here a few of mine.

From Panopticon

From Panopticon

From Panopticon

From Panopticon

I wish the P was a better color.

Poster WIP

From Panopticon

This is my WIP that I presented in class today, without any changes yet. I want to possibly add leave or flowers to the composition. Also, I now know that we can have a horizontal composition, so I may try to use the same technique on simply one word, like revolution. I'm going to add changing line widths as well.

The Eagle and the Hand

From Panopticon

This is close to my final concept for project 3. I split the eagle a little bit more, and also added the finger-hands trying to grasp the eagle and the off-shooting birds. The hands on the fingers are similar to the image of the eagle becoming smaller birds. I also put a cloud inside the eagle because I felt it was an effective use of color and implied sky. A displacement map was added over the entire thing to give the feeling of destruction.

Eagle

From Panopticon

This is an experimentation for our third project. I'm trying to show the idea of something strong and large made up of smaller, weaker, yet similar things.

Found Mixed Media

Click to link to see the composition, DeviantArt won't let users imbed. I really like this piece because it's very much like what we're supposed to do. The background has been scanned it, the animals and elements have been collaged together, then printed and inking was added, then finally scanned in again and other elements added. It's a great work with good color and good composition.

Grapes

From Panopticon

I took this photo as a study for my drawing class, trying to see my grapes close up, and how they fit together. It's not the best photo, but I think it shows a lot of detail with a good depth of field.

The Fountain

From Panopticon

From Panopticon

These photos are the results of the second project and experimentation with shutter speed. The first picture, the one with a lot of detail, was shot at 1/4000 for the shutter speed, allowing me to capture a freeze frame of the water and the droplets.

The second picture is almost exactly the same composition, but with a shutter speed of 1/20. This allowed me to capture the water as it blurred together. It was in constant motion, but nothing else was.

The Hall

From Panopticon

This is the self-portrait that got the best response in class. I had another personal favorite, but I do like the composition and tone of this one.

Mechanical Abstraction

From Panopticon

I like this image because of its mechanical abstraction. It's easily identifiable, but it's very abstract in nature. The slight radial symmetry also intrigues me. It keeps the eye moving around the photo.

Photography interests me, specifically capturing something that may never be that way again, and saving it for other to see any enjoy or marvel over.

Date taken: September 4, 2008