Heather Cummings Task #1: Thomas Struth
I took my idea from a comment Struth made about the people in his typological museum photos: "Why are the people there, what are they getting out of it, is any change occurring in their personal lives because of it, in their public lives, in their family, with their friends?" He also claimed that his photos "[act] as a mirror of our cultural behaviour." So I took those two comments and thought about what modern cultural behaviours I could examine and chose cell phone/Instagram picture taking. These are all photos of random people on the street who I noticed taking pictures. I asked them to pose for me so I could get a picture of them. So I pose the question: what do people get out of taking so many cell phone pictures or Instagramming? I thought making a typological series about it would better stress this question. Any thoughts?
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ReplyDeleteHi Heather! What an interesting idea, especially being inspired by a quote rather than just his photos. You definitely made me want to read your entire paragraph when I saw your photos because it was obvious you didn't just try to make a copy cat photo of one of Struth's photos. Nice job!
ReplyDelete- Hayley Jones
Your concept is very strong though aesthetically I think you could do a lot better. Right now your images are looking like snapshots , you need something to emphasize that you are taking a picture of someone taking a picture. Perhaps a change of composition or even an added saturation to your photographs ?
ReplyDeleteNone the less they are super sweet, congrats !
- Rebecca
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ReplyDeleteI LOVE the idea around this! Struth said in one of his interviews that the more images were in the series, the more interesting they became - exactly the same here. I think its a great message too. I was thinking "this should be a typological series" before I even read that you thought so already.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Rebecca, something needs to change with the composition. Possibly cropping more of the surroundings off the top. It will draw attention to the subject (especially the attatchment with the object in their hand), and hold our attention instead of letting it wander onto the rest of the image.
-Erin Whittier
Alright, I'm going to crop them closer and add a few more images since you agree that it's a good typological idea. Thanks guys!
ReplyDeleteHeather Cummings
The structures all seem to line up with the people shooting them. I'm not sure if you did this on purpose but it reminds me of the video we watched in class, when Struth said (in german i think) that in the museum, he noticed similarities between the people looking at the paintings and the actual paintings themselves.
ReplyDeleteVERY COOL
-Alex DeMelo
ps. you even got that blurry guy walking by as i've seen in a few of struths photos i hope that was intentional!