back to school, back to school.

The last semester of my college career has begun! I am feeling positive about the direction my work will be taking this semester. After writing the first draft of my thesis and meeting in a group as a class, I have a good idea of what I need to work on immediately. I have been so focused on creating underwater photographs and figuring out the logistics of this project that I have put the actual presentation of the work on the back burner. I have a feeling that this semester is going to fly by and I need to start actively figuring out how I want to present this project to the public. I am interested in projecting the images... which will allow the images to be much larger than I would be able to do with prints (due to technical problems, cost & space...etc.). As the project has evolved I have also become much more interested in creating a sense of atmosphere in a gallery space... a place where people feel as if they are entering into my work.

For Jan. 19th, I will be showing classmates a projection in a small group critique. I realize that I need to figure out how to show a number of images without them appearing to be a slideshow. I am interested in incorporating some of the small video clips that I have taken... So I am going to start organizing and compiling still images and video in imovie so that I can experiment to get the effect I want. I am hoping that I will be able to get a number of images to flow together into each other. I will also have to address sound and decide how much audio should play into the finished product. It may turn out that imovie won't be the best software to work with for this project, but I am going to use it as a starting point and explore other solutions if problems arise.

I spent my studio time yesterday editing pictures that I haven't given enough attention. I really responded to this image:

It is very different from other images that I have taken this year, but there is something about the way it glows in combination with the movement blur that intrigues me. Without knowing the context of my project I don't know how anyone would know what this is... I feel like the combination of images like this with sound and video could produce the kind of atmosphere that I have been thinking about. I want to create the surreal feeling of being in the water, or in a unfamiliar space with these images...


On another note, I looked at the work of Chris Jordan after my review panel recommended him. I don't know if they were aware of the fact that he just recently completed a project related to the Pacific garbage patch... He went to Midway Atoll where he photographed baby albatross chicks who are being fed plastic particles by their parents on accident. On his website he explains,

"These photographs of albatross chicks were made on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, none of the plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the untouched stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent."

These photographs were taken from Chris Jordan's website: www.chrisjordan.com

You can view a TED talk of Jordan discussing his work HERE.

I also found images, videos, & writing (including Jordan's) about the garbage patch at this website: www.midwayjourney.com