SIP ESSAY
Inspiration
My work did not evolve from concept to method, but rather from method to concept. I decided early on that the art form in which I would work would be photography. As I gave thought to what I would like to do with my photography, I was drawn to portraiture, perhaps my favorite form of photography. In my portraits I generally shoot the subject in the foreground, at a profile, with a blurred-out background that only hints at saying something about whom the subject is. I decided early on, however, that this was not what I wanted to do for my SIP.I decided to step back for a while and let my idea develop elsewhere. When I was in Disney World over the summer, I was riding the bus back from one of the parks at night when I looked up at the sky and watched the stars move by. This brought my mind to photos of the night sky with stars streaking across the sky and of car headlights creating lines across roads, and from there led me to the idea of moving light.
I had heard of a process where flashlights could be used in the dark to make streaks of light in the photographs, and I knew this was the process I wanted to use. I worked on this method over the course of a couple of months and my work evolved from simple swirls and lines, to highlighting bottles, to tracing to hands, and finally to tracing bodies.
Interestingly, I looked back on the work I did around the time that I was trying to come up with an idea for my SIP. I did a small study of movement, where I simply wanted to know what the camera sees. I had Kristin move various body parts and spin in chairs as I varied the shutter speed and lighting. Without realizing it, I was in the beginning stages of what my SIP has become.
Method
The word “photography” literally means “to paint with light”. I have taken this meaning a step beyond the usual bounds of photography in my study of identity.
In this study, I used a method of painting with light in a more literal sense. Instead of photographing people lit naturally or by strobes, I shot people in the dark and provided the light myself. By setting the shutter speed to at least 10 seconds, and often longer, and containing the subject in a completely dark room, I was able to manipulate the figure and only let the camera see exactly what I wanted it to.This method created the effect of a bright, flowing line that surrounded the subject. The light not only created this line, but also highlighted some parts of the subject in the area of the line as a soft edge light. This lends to a ghostly appearance where only certain details of each person can be seen and identified.
The photographic process for each photo took only, perhaps, a few minutes. The subject was arranged in the desired position. The camera was re-aligned to be sure the subject would be in the photograph and in focus. I discussed with the subject what I would be doing, and then turned off the lights in the room and went to the camera. The shutter was opened, and I ran behind the subject and turned on my Mag-Light and started tracing the body.
Tracing the body gave me a freedom to create whatever outline of a person I desired. In my shooting I experimented with this quite a bit. I drew large muscles on men, created larger-than-life breasts on women, and, in one of the pieces that made it into my final show, outlined the hair wildly to represent how I perceived her hairstyle to be.
Much of the tracing I did was true-to-life, but the pieces that I feel have the greatest effect are those with details that have either been added on, or left out. This can be seen to a large extent in the pieces comprising Kristin.
On the left we can see her hair. I find her hair to be one of her most identifiable traits; she had it cut and styled this way when she interned in New York City, and what it represents to me is twofold. First, we see her courage. Moving to New York for three months in my mind requires someone who is not afraid to fail. And second, it represents her artistic nature. She would like to pursue advertising, and this sophisticated look is just what she needs to make the step into that world.
It is also note-worthy that this piece depends almost entirely on the line of the light to create the figure. We can see only what the beam of light has given us, and only the very faintest hint of her actual body around her right ear.On the right we can see how the absence of details can likewise influence the power of the piece. The main feature in this photo is the left side of Kristin’s body: her arm and her torso. We cannot see her face, or the shape of her face, at all. We only have slight hints at who the subject is through her form.
The areas that have been highlighted by the light also have a great effect. We cannot see much of the shape of her body, but we can see the slight curve on the side of her torso because these have been slightly illuminated by the light. This same hinting is seen on Kristin’s neck. It has an eerie feeling, as if only half a person exists, but the pose reveals that there must be more there.
The highlighting of body parts is also seen in the study of Jessica.
Jessica’s running pose allowed the light to reflect off much more of her body than the poses Kristin took. However, instead of revealing too much of her, this allows just enough of Jessica to be seen to make us want more. The glow off her sweater, hair and face reveal much more of her identity immediately than we saw in Kristin. Rather than depending on the line alone, as was certainly the case in the left photo of Kristin, this piece depends on these highlight to reveal the identity of the subject.
The photo on the right of Jessica gives creates yet another effect. In tracing her hand, she brought light in front of her body which then very slightly illuminated her face. This is the only piece in which we can see the subject’s eyes and watch her as she works.The pairs of photographs share the common trait that in one photo the subject is tracing her hand, and in the other photo the subject is in a pose indicative of that person. In so many aspects of life we use fingerprints to identify people. Fingerprints are a common symbol of identity, and thus I wanted to include them in this work. By having each subject trace her hand, and by putting their handprints on their images, I was able to do this in two ways.
In Leah’s piece, we can see that she has chosen to trace her hand in a slightly different way than the other subjects. Rather than holding her hand with fingers pointing up, she held her hand sideways. She also traced, and then re-traced her hand, creating the blur of red with only the slight indication of her hand. Since I wanted the subjects to put their handprint on the piece, as if they were signing the work, I left this process up to each subject. I showed them possible ways to trace their hands, but ultimately decided that the variations that would come from each individual style would contribute to the authenticity of the identities being created.
Following the photographic processes came the digital process. I scanned the negatives into the computer and then used Adobe Photoshop to alter the images. From each subject I collected a handprint using red paint on a transparency. I also asked each woman to describe herself in five words and write those in her own handwriting on another transparency. I combined these with five words of my own for each subject and created the pieces that would later be printed. The pieces containing the traced hand feature the words that I wrote. The pieces containing the subject’s handprint use the words of the subject, as if the hand that was printed was the one that actually put the words on the canvas.In its digital form, on the computer screen, the dominant feature of Leah’s second piece is her large purple handprint. I used the color balance tool in Photoshop to change the paint color of her handprint to purple, and scaled it to cover the entire image. In its printed form, simply because of the way it printed, the hand is not nearly as obvious, but it still adds to the image. The shapes that appear in the handprint such as the curve from the index finger to the thumb and the empty space in the palm of the hand interact well with the light that traced Leah’s body.
The words that I added to each piece solidly carry out the theme of the pieces by conveying to the viewer exactly how the subject identifies herself. In this study I found that my subjects were very general in the words they chose, and chose no words that were particularly positive or particularly negative. I think this takes away slightly from the power of the piece, but with the words I added in, we can still get a well-rounded view of the women.
Sarah’s words stand out slightly from those of the other subjects; we can see these in the image on the right. Her words seem to say more about who she is, and how she thinks rather than saying something about how she interacts with other people, which is what we see in Leah’s choice of “kind” and “honest”, and Jessica’s use of “thoughtful”. “Unconventional”, one of the words Sarah chose, really does seem to describe her choice of words.
The image on the left embodies many of the aspects that have already been mentioned. The bump on the top of Sarah’s head is a result of her hairdo. Sarah traced her hand very quickly, making only one pass, and thus resulting in the streaky effect of the light. Parts of her arm and small sections of her hair have been illuminated by the passing light. Finally, my words describing Sarah have been added, creating a contrast of color, and adding more depth to the identity that was created in the first image.
Another aspect of these pieces that can be seen in Sarah’s images as well as in Leah’s images is the highlighting of the background. Whereas and Kristin’s and Jessica’s images seem to float in a black background, Leah and Sarah are grounded by the yellowish-wood paneling of the closet in which their photographs were taken. These backgrounds add the dimension of space to the pieces.
Concept
The study of identity developed through many months of work on these pieces. It was not until I saw the images emerge that I really knew where the work was heading. While I feel that the pieces do work as a study of identity of college-age women, there are some aspects of this study that could be stronger.While I was creating the pieces it never occurred to me to talk with my subjects, who are also my friends, about the words they chose to identify themselves. It was not until after the pieces were hung and someone suggested it to me that this thought ever came to mind. I now think that through interviews and discussion, together with the women we could have come up with more representative descriptions of who they are. Perhaps instead of individual words, I could have allowed them to choose phases or write a few sentences about themselves in order to reveal more of their identity.
I originally kept the words to a minimum because that is all of their image that I allowed into the piece; just the outline, the minimum amount of body to still allow the identity to show through. I don’t know for certain if this is something I would like to change in my work or not, but it is something I would like to further experiment with. While the words were perhaps not the best representations of each woman, I believe that the words combined with the handprints and the images create a larger picture that is very powerful.
Current Artists
In developing my SIP I did not reference the work of other artists using these same methods. However, now that I have finished my work, I can look at what others have done and see the differences and similarities that have arisen. When I originally thought of stars streaking across the sky and cars at night, images such as those of Richard Misrach’s Mars and Air Traffic over Las Vegas (left, from http://www.eyestorm.com/feature/ED2n_article.asp?article_id=150&caller=1) and Tom Paiva’s LAX series (right, from http://www.tompaiva.com/) were what came to my mind (although not those photographs or artists specifically). This type of work with light was the only kind I was familiar with at the timeSince finishing my project, I have found other artists who are doing work similar mine, however this work extends only to the photographic aspect and does not include the digital work that I have done. Next to two of my pieces, the work of Paul Wesley Griggs (center, from http://www.artcousticusa.com/productdetails_artwork.asp?atID=9&awOrder=2), a photographer in London, very much resembles my early experiments with light alone.
All three pieces show the movement of lights across the view of the camera. There is no background or grounding. The Griggs piece has three colors while mine have only one or two. The Griggs piece also seems to have some purpose. The streaks are meaningful and deliberate. Perhaps it is because I know the context behind my work, but looking at it now I do not see any purpose to it. At the same time, however, I am not particularly interested in either piece. They are far too abstract for my liking and simply do not have enough content.I have not been successful in finding other work that is very much like mine. The works most similar to mine were not shot completely in the dark, but rather used a strobe to illuminate the image after the flashlights created the lines. My lack of success finding work similar to mine actually is very satisfying because, whether this is correct or not, it makes me feel as if I am one of the very few artists who have attempted work such as this.
Gallery
The layout of my gallery was not typical, and this is something that I felt was necessary because the pieces being displayed were not typical. Rather than framing the images and hanging them on the wall, I chose to print the images, some larger than life and some slightly smaller than life, and suspend them throughout the gallery.I felt it was absolutely necessary that each woman’s pair be visible together from some point in the gallery. I also wanted the pieces to be able to move when people walked by, as if they were alive. Thus, I hung the pieces so that viewers would have to make their way through the gallery and walk around the pieces to see all of them. The movement of people in the gallery would make the pieces swing slightly.
The effect of hanging the pieces throughout the gallery was astonishing. The size of the pieces filled the room, and the layout of the images led the viewer through the room, directing them where to go. As another piece of identity, and a way to show uninformed viewers where to look, I placed the footprints of each subject on the floor. These directed viewers where to stand in order to best see both of a given subjects images at once.
Overall I am extremely happy with how my work turned out. I think the installation in the gallery was an excellent way to display the large-scale works, and the effect was even greater than what I had hoped it would be.