{dREaM}

Working on this new series has gotten me thinking a lot about dreaming and daydreaming.  We've all heard Jung's views on dreams and how, according to him, they are a way by which we can communicate with the collective unconscious.  This concept of dream interpretation basically means that our dreams serve as a guide to offer solutions to problems or tribulations that we may be facing in our lives.  I have never really looked too far into my dreams and have certainly never made life decisions based upon them.  Actually, I take that back.  I'm sure that I have, I'm just not aware of it.  I've always been a bit jealous of people who have these amazingly vivid dreams where they fly and meet interesting, important people, etc.  Frankly, I've never been good at remembering my dreams.  If I don't talk about it right when I wake up, it's gone.  And my Nanny told me to never talk about my dreams until I've eaten breakfast because if you do, they might come true.  And as a person who can't watch a scary movie without having some kind of nightmare, I tend to keep my mouth shut. 


This series is moving into a direction that I'm having a lot of fun with.  First of all, the images that I'm creating are coming from a completely fictional story.  This leaves for quite a bit of wiggle room, but I don't want to go too crazy with that creative freedom.  I'd still like to end up with a somewhat cohesive,  sensible series of images.  So, where do I go from here?  This week I'll be exploring new ways of bringing the subtle, fuzzy qualities of dreams into my work and also taking a closer look into some of the shots from the last shoot that I quickly disregarded. 

This image is probably my favorite from last week's shoot.  The problem is, it doesn't fit perfectly into the series at the moment.  My goal is to make it fit.

10- Week Super SCAD Series Marathon

One thing I love/hate about SCAD is the 10 week terms.  On one hand, I enjoy the fact that my schedule is changing often and that I am quickly learning new things.  However, when trying to develop a new series, I LOATHE the 10 week terms.  The pressure of knowing that you not only have to propose a concept, you also have to produce it is overwhelming.  I CAN'T TAKE THE PRESSURE!    I would love to be able to take my time with an idea.  Plant the seed and let it grow.  At the moment, I am not feeling inspired.


Last term, I challenged myself to come up with a narrative as my concept for my series.  In the series, a woman is on a journey to find her lost son who had been taken from her as an infant.  When she arrives at the place where she thought he had been all these years, she discovers that the facilities are abandoned.  While, the viewer is not going to get the specifics of the story, I feel that I succeeded in the overall theme.  Here are just a few shots from that series.

This term, I am continuing with this story.  However, I'm not moving forward.  My next photos will be like flashbacks to the last series.  I want to show the mother with her child.  In these images, I would like for the viewer to be able to recognize them as flashbacks or dreams.  I began shooting the new images this past week and was left a little stumped as to where I'm going.  Though I am happy with some of the images, I worry about what message they are conveying.  Sometimes I find myself so caught up in the detailed story of these images and I forget that the viewer is not necessarily going to connect the dots themselves.  But at the same time, I feel like that's okay too.  I don't want to spoon feed the viewer into gaining the exact story I have in my head.  If I wanted that to happen, I would just add words and make a book.  Here are a few of the shots from this week's shoot.

Post Panel Thoughts

Last Wednesday evening I attended a panal discussion at Hagedorn Gallery. The panelists were Sheila Pree Bright, Ed Garnes, Erin Harper, & Fahamu Pecou and they were discussing ideas of conflicted racial and identity issues using Michael Jackson as a platform for topics. The work featured in the gallery right now is that of Todd Gray who was Michael Jackson's personal photographer from 1974-1984. The discussion was interesting but one topic that stood out to me is how much a person is willing to sacrifice in order to be a successful artist. This got me thinking. How much am I willing to sacrifice? Before starting art school, I never thought it would be possible for me to be a fine artist. For me, art school was a way to change my life an embark on a new path. However, after now being an art student for over a year, I am learning that I am not only expected to produce quality work, I am also expected to be competitive. I am supposed to network and market myself. This is not what I had in mind. I can say that I honestly decided to go back to school and be a student of photography in order to have better artistic tools to express myself with. Before attending school, I was learning from a friend and teaching myself what I could. I was at a place on my life where my career was not challenging me and quite frankly, bringing me down. I knew that I needed to make a change. So now that I am here, I feel like one of the few who are actually here to better express themselves. Everyone seems so work driven. "What internships have you applied for? Y What type of work do you do? Where would you like to see yourself working in 5 years?" these are all questions I have recently been asked and I just don't have the answers to. I am new to the idea of calling myself an artist and to be honest, I need more time to figure out where this path is leading me. Until then, I'm just going to continue to learn and grow. Hopefully, soon I will know what to say when I am confronted with the opportunity to promote myself.

Starting a New Series

To me, starting a new series can be daunting. As I sit in La Guardia waiting for my flight back to Atlanta, I am trying to give myself a pep talk. “This new series will be great! It will be just as successful as the last and take me to new places as an artist.” (Blah, blah, blah). However, all I can think about is the beautiful place I’ve spent the past two days surrounded by wonderful friends and family. I was in a place called Full Moon just north of Woodstock, NY. No phones. No Internet. And barely any digital photography. I have recently acquired a Yashica MAT twin lens camera ( yes, I know, the poor man’s Rolleiflex) and am loving it. I have experience shooting 35 mm film, but this is my first time experimenting with medium format. I think I’m addicted. I feel like it’s all I want to do now. The simplicity of the process makes me feel at home. Sometimes when I am shooting with my DSLR, I feel overwhelmed with options. It’s nice to return to an instrument that requires you to take your time, visualize your image, think about the settings, and snap. I think I need this in my life right now.

So back to my series. I was originally thinking about shooting digitally, but now with my new love affair with medium format, I feel like I should continue in this direction. Maybe I’ll try both in the beginning and see which I prefer. Maybe it was just my brief escape from technology and a return to all things simple, but I can say that I’m leaning towards the old Yashica. The excitement of learning a new instrument makes the task of actually starting this series a little less daunting.