Thursday, October 8, 2015

Project No. 3: Something is Happening Photography Series

I thought pretty long and hard about how to execute this project, and it wasn't getting me anywhere. After realizing that my thoughts were impeding me from actually doing the project, I chose to stop overthinking so damn much and just start photographing (this always happens). I chose to use the simplest and easiest device to capture my pictures: my iPhone 4S - not very high-quality/resolution and pretty "amateur", but it worked really well for my point-and-shoot technique. 
McLuhan says the way space is perceived shapes our culture. Since the Renaissance, the Western world has perceived the environment in terms of the visual (p.57). It is not to any surprise then that our environments affect our mood and well-being so much (Ed Vessel kind-of-thinking). Broadly, this is what I focused on: understanding how our environments look and how that affects us.
As I began observing the spaces around me, I wondered what they'd look like in a square frame. How would my own compositions change what these natural arrangements meant? How would it constrict their existence, but also put emphasis on their meaning and purpose in life? Did they have a purpose? My little square photographs try to make sense of the arrangements in and of the space around us, while also asking the question "why?". Why are things positioned/arranged/decorated as they are? What does that do to and for us? How does it make us feel?  

I wanted to highlight the different appearances of environments according to their purpose. While some environments are simply created to attract the eye, others are made with a specific and sometimes not-very-aesthetic purpose (mostly efficient and economical). So I chose to juxtapose the different man-made environments and their "beauty" within the structure of my album (and hopefully in someway, emphasize their beauty).  

Here is a link to my Flickr album Arrangements


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