Introduction

My conceptual photography is entitled “What Men Really Want” and basically, its Polaroids of two men sleeping, and their subconscious thought patterns.

The top four Polaroids are the things that men think about most of the time, and as the viewers’ eyes cascades downwards, it shows two different men sleeping at different times of the day, at different time periods.

It is a confluence between an academic discourse by Sigmund Freud and his writings on psychoanalysis, as wells as a parody of the 2000 comedy blockbuster, “What Women Want”.

It could be seen as either the truthful representation, or a biased portrayal of men, and that is up for contention. Especially since the artwork is made up of photographs of photographs (polaroids), it shows a one sided perspective which might or might not be completely true.

Reference Artists

I was inspired by two war photographers.

The first being David Guttenfelder, a photographer from the Associated Press (AP), who captured Afghanistan’s largest scale military operation with his iPhone, and then processed it via an application to turn it into Polaroids. To him, there is a sense of timelessness in Polaroids.

Secondly, it was A. Raffaele Ciriello, a photojournalist who took plenty Polaroid portraits during his stay in many war-torn countries.

Research/Idea Development

I think many would question and ask, what’s the relationship between war photographers and what men really want. Besides the fact that they’re all males, there seem to be nothing in common.

Keyword being “seem”.

When I looked through Guttenfelder and Ciriello’s photographs, the question of how “true” their photographs were kept on popping up in my mind. Because the Media has long framed our perspectives, just like how a photograph frames a certain event in a certain way. As much as the saying “a photograph speaks a thousand words” goes, how sure are we that the thousand words are all truthful? Especially in the case of wars, and how it has been carefully portrayed in the Media. Similar sentiments on this particular issue is reflected in my Appropriation assignment, on how we should be wary and critical of what is being presented to us on television.

So I decided to combine that uncertainty of truth in photography with a more lighthearted subject, i.e. Men.

Research was made through twitter, where i tweeted to my followers asking them to list the top three things that they think men are always thinking about, or if they’re males themselves, the top three things that they think of. A total of 40 people responded, a good mix between males and females from across the age range of 20 to 30 years old. I complied the words and underlined the common ones. These underlined words thus became the images for my first four Polaroids.

As mentioned earlier, the artwork is made up of photographs of photographs. This is similar to Ciriello who took photographs of his subjects, with a Polaroid of themselves in hand. This was done on purpose to show that what you see is always influenced by another person’s perspective and therefore one must always be critical when viewing photographs. For the bottom two photographs, I wrote two different dates between the past decade. Like how Guttenfelder felt the timelessness of Polaroids, I felt that men would always have similar subconscious thoughts despite their age and the historical context.

Technique Used

I used a 50mm prime lens, meaning I had to move my self back and forth until I can take the best photograph of a Polaroid. With a low aperture, I intend to maximize the bouquet effect as much as possible so that the focus would only be on the Polaroid. For the Polaroid, it was initially hard because I had to make sure of the lighting, and I couldn’t make much mistakes because the film is expensive and I have limited resources.

Reflection

Initially when we were given this assignment, I immediately chose to Google “conceptual art” and admired photograph to photograph. I had many ideas in my head each time I found a new way to do conceptual art. As much as creativity is a boon, it doesn’t help when you want to change your idea every few minutes.

I have learnt that to have good conceptual photographs, one must have a strong idea in mind. The many ways to do conceptual art, those are tools. Valuable, but photography tools at the end of the day. To do a proper conceptual photograph, it is not a matter of opportunity. It is not photography by chance, but photography with purpose. Without getting a concrete purpose, you may be equipped with many skills but no specific direction to work on.

lately i have been overwhelmed by twenty six alphabets of the english language. strung together, supposedly to create some form of coherence in whatever modules i’m doing but little do they do how uninspired i’ve become.

but today Jing said our final assignment was a photo essay. just exactly what my right brain needs. i think i’ve something in mind, and yes thankfully nothing related to academic writings.

i guess the best part of this module is being able to put myself in my work, and not worry if its intellectual enough because its a matter of perception.

can’t wait to start on it!

class exercise seven: exhibition marathon

question one: in the exhibition, choose one or a couple of works that inspired you. explain why.

Daniel Kukla’s Captive Landscapes struck me the most.

Kukla captured the interiors of eight animal enclosures all across the U.S, of which every photograph vividly portrayed the constructed environment of the space. i find it very interesting how the photograph flows. at first sight, one would notice the initial flawless imitation of the natural environment until your eyes rest on a very “human” element such as light bulbs, switches and wiring. it is both disturbing and inspiring. disturbing because it made me question how humane is humanity, if we cage up these animals for entertainment and commercial purposes? simultaneously, i was inspired by how critical Kukla was, instead of being sold by the idea of many zoos’ “natural landscapes”. Kukla doesn’t take things at a face value, and takes a step further by making a statement with his photography - he is both brilliant and brave.

question two: observe how photographers convey their concept/idea through their chosen media and subject matter. choose one series that you think the photographer has effectively convey his/her concept in his/her work.

in terms of concept, i feel that Mike Whelan’s Ad-Site’s concept was very clear in his portrayal. he juxtaposed artists impressions of a particular site, with the reality of the location. the jarring image only serves to show how urban developments are more destructive than constructive. similarly to Kukla, his works are highly effective and expressive because i felt disturbed and disgusted by humanity again. it made me re-think about how the world is in constant pursuit of technological progress and betterment yet in reality, it is more regressive. the fact that it made set thinking, aside just feeling, made me feel that Whelan has effectively conveyed his work.

question three: observe how photographers present their work (i.e. choice of framing, hanging etc). choose one or a few series of work that you think the photographer(s) has effectively present his/her/their work.

in terms of presentation, i think Agata Marzecova’s All that is solid melts into air (2009) wins hands down. i love how she framed her artwork in scientific slides. the usual dichotomy between art and science, beauty and rationality is being blurred in this series.

class exercise five: appropriation

i understood appropriation as borrowing other works, which reminds me of what i learnt in Sociology of Popular Culture, i.e. postmodernism and pastiche. basically its borrowing different elements or genres and putting it all together because nothing is new to begin with. everything is borrowed from somewhere, originality does not exist.

i guess some would way that it is “stealing”, but i feel that as long as you credit the person who’s original work you took that’s okay right? but then again there are pretty possessive people in the world…….

but come on, the works that Jing showed us in class, they were pretty good looking and the statement they made was absolutely mindblowing. so yes, appropriation is fine if you’ve a stand to make.

class exercise four: lighting in photography

i read somewhere that light and dark are not two binaries, because for them to be binaries they had to be independent of each other. however, it is interesting to know that darkness is dependent on light, meaning darkness does not exist on its own. it exists only because light is absent.

well for class today obviously we didn’t go into the philosophy or physics of light. haha. but i was quite amused by how higher temperatures are associated to shades of blue, while lower temperatures are related to shades of red. isn’t that the opposite of what we learned in art class? warmer hues are reddish, cooler hues are blueish.

what caught the most of my attention was the part on how moods are altered when the direction of light is changed. we got to play with Jing’s lights and i really, really like how so strong or soft a photograph turns out. adding a diffuser affects the softness even further.

today i’m more aware of the intensity of light, and how just this single element changes so much of a photograph’s meaning. very, very interesting.