11. Try to imagine a place from your past. Do you have pictures of this place? Describe this place as you remember it. What might a photograph look like of this place if you were to go back and photograph it? What would it look like in the past? What would it look like to you today? Where are you standing in this place? What other items are in this place? What colors do you see? Are there other people or are you alone? Make a “written photograph” of this place using words/description.
A place from my past that I remember is my grandparents' old house. We do have photos of it, but since I was there when I was much younger, the photographs don't seem to capture it as I remember from my much shorter and smaller viewpoint. It seemed much larger in the past than it would to me now-- then I considered it a mansion, while now if I went there I would say it is admittedly a large house, but it's not a mansion.
When I remember it, I remember standing in the main entryway, where there was a large fountain in the middle of the room with green tile and shells at the bottom and in the back, a tall, curved staircase with a black wrought iron rail. I think the tile on the floor was dark green too. The dining room is to the right, and the living room is to the left. A small family room is past the fountain through a small open doorway. The door to the basement is to the left of that doorway.
When I imagine it, I'm in the room by myself, much younger, possibly balancing and walking around the edge of the fountain, with the child versions of my cousins running in and out of the room. I was usually at their house for holidays, so the whole family would usually be there. The air is warm but the floor is cold. You can hear the family talking and laughing in the kitchen and the kids playfully screaming as they run around the house. Even though it was so large, it didn't feel cold unless there weren't many people there. During the holidays it felt very "homey". There were many candles and it became very dark at night because there was so much space, but I don't remember feeling scared.
I always remember their house as being warm, fun place to see my family. I was very upset when they had to sell it because it was too big for them to take care of by themselves. I also have fond memories of it not only because I spent many holidays of my youth there, but my family seemed happier then too. Since then, my grandmother, an aunt and a cousin on that side of the family have died. When I remember them, I like to think about their smiling faces during Christmas or Thanksgiving in that beautiful house.
12. Which photograph from your past do you remember most? Describe this photograph. Describe how it makes you feel when you remember/think about this photograph. How have you changed? How has the place in this photograph changed? What would a reenactment of this photograph look like? Would you act or look differently if you reenacted this scene today?
I have a hard time choosing one specific photo I remember most, but one photo that sticks out to me is one that was taken after I won a cake walk at my mom's work picnic, when I was about 2-3 I think. My dad would always say "Go win a cake for Daddy!" and I was so excited and proud that I had actually done it. In the photo, I have a huge grin and I am standing next to my sister who is holding the cake box open for the photo. It's sort of funny because the top of the box is blocking her face so all you can see is her hands holding the box and her legs. I love how happy I was in this photo and how easy it was to make me that happy. I still try to make my parents proud, but its not as easy as a cakewalk now. My mom no longer works for Sparrow Hospital, and they don't have the picnic anymore anyways. The place where the picnic is still exists, and my family and I still go there sometimes to go for a walk, but it was always more exciting with all the people milling around, the food, bingo, music, face painting etc. that was part of the picnic. If I were to reenact this photo, it would probably be with an award I won or something rather than a cake. I'm sure I would still seem happy, but probably not with the same amount of excitement as there was in the first photo. Obviously I am much older now as well.
I managed to find the photo on my computer, though the quality is very poor, here it is!
13. In the past, photographers who were interested in how humans impacted the natural landscape grouped together to form the New Topographics. At the same time in history artists created (and still do create) “land art” in which they use materials found in the landscape to make sculptures that remain in the landscape.
Pay attention to the number of ways in which you encounter humans’ interaction with nature and the physical land. Using these as inspiration, describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might create that would be documented by a photograph. Describe an idea for a piece of “land art” that you might make in a man-made landscape that would be documented by a photograph.
One of the things that upsets me most is when people stick their gum on benches or walls, under tables or chairs, or just throw it on the ground. It really shouldn't be that hard to find a place to throw it away. Many times it can almost "ruin" a scene for me because it disgusts me so much. I think something interesting that I could do to document human interaction with nature/land would be to make a sculpture of some sort with this discarded gum. Maybe this could bring some awareness to people about how careless and selfish they are being and show how disgusting it is by making it more prominent. It would be interesting to document people's reactions to the sculpture with a photograph. It also would be interesting to see how they interacted with it- would they add to it with their own gum or would someone just clean it up and take it away? I think this would be an interesting sculpture to make in both an urban area and a more natural area, like a park, especially to see if reactions would be the same in both areas.
#14 When photography was invented, it became a way to document and reveal the specific aspects of both familiar and faraway places. Imagine a familiar place. Imagine a faraway place. How would you use photographs to convey the difference? Can you imagine any places that have been “touched” very little by humans? How might you photograph them?
It seems to me that when photographing a familiar place, I try to capture more intimate or specific details about it, because these are the things that remind me most about it. When I'm in an unfamiliar or new place, I usually try to capture more of a broad idea of the area so that I can remember it better, and then focus on more specific details after. I think the difference between the intimacy of the photographs of the familiar place and the more exploratory view of the "faraway" or new place could convey the difference in the two. You could also pay attention to photographing things that seem to contrast greatly between the two spaces to bring out the differences even more fully.
It's actually sort of difficult to imagine a place in the world that has been barely altered by human presence, but I would imagine a natural area that has been protected is relatively free of human touch. I would photograph both large views and intimate views and details of the area and the life within it, to show what a world "without humans" looks like. It would be interesting to compare the area with another area that could have been like it if it had been protected as well.
15. Collage brings together two or more items that were previously separate. The resulting piece usually visually references the fact that they were once separate entities. Imagine an important place in your past. Imagine an important place in your present. Imagine who you were in both of these past and present places. Describe how you might use a slow shutter speed and/or double exposure to capture two moments in one image that tell a new narrative about these important places and how they relate to who you are and were.
In the past, my family would try to sit down together everyday at dinnertime to spend time together and talk about how each of our days went. My parents work later now and with school, work and busier social lives, my older sister and I have been coming home later too. We are lucky if we all have dinner together once a week. I usually end up eating a bowl of cereal in the living room while doing homework.
It would be interesting to have a double exposure of an image of me eating in front of my computer with a more translucent image of my family around the dinner table in the background. This would show how us eating together happened more in the past, and also show how my family is sort of growing apart as we get older. I feel like I used to look forward to these dinners much more when I was younger, because even though I still appreciate them now, we usually end up fighting by the end of dinner instead of enjoying ourselves. Sometimes I prefer my own company and the familiar cereal bowl. I could also do a double exposure with two images of us in the dining room- a more translucent one where we are happy and laughing against a clearer one where we are fighting. These images would be more about me losing an important tradition in my past rather than comparing two important places in my past and present. But maybe the dining room is even more important now than it used to be, because it symbolizes the rare time we get to spend together, regardless of whether its as enjoyable as it used to be or not.
