January 22

Kayla Vahling

Video Response 1

1/22/11

Shelby Lee Adams

            As I watched the documentary on the photography of Shelby Lee Adams in Appalachia I found my opinion of him and his work constantly changing.  I think that my indecision was largely based on how well done the documentary was.  The film showed people who both appreciated praised Adams’ work as well as those who strongly disagreed with it.

            Seeing the documentary, and how Adams staged his photographs greatly changed how I saw them.  The film opened with a slide show of his photos of the people of Appalachia, and though it was obvious he had the families come out of their homes and take the photo they did not seem as staged as they actually were.  I was actually a little bit disappointed to find out how set up the photos were, from where people stood to the expressions on their faces.  One of the commentators mentioned that the photos do not show the beauty of the people, which I agreed with.  In many of the photos, the subjects’ somber faces expressed what looked to me like sadness and discontent with their situations.  The film clips from the archives however, showed the families that Adams photographed rather happy with their lives in Appalachia.  This originally had me thinking that the photos that Adams publishes are not true representations of the lives and personalities, and that they actually added to the stereotypes that the people of eastern Kentucky face.

            After seeing the last segment of the film with the family who has two mentally retarded children, my thoughts on his work changed again.  I thought it was important for the viewers of the photographs to understand that Adams had been friends with the family for years and years.  Understanding that he was truly close to the families that he photographed made the photographs seem more personal and moving.

January 21

Kayla Vahling

Cultural Event 1

Photo Portfolio

1/15/10

Underground at the DAM

            My alternative photo processes class was lucky enough to visit the Denver Art Museum, and see some of the prints in the curator’s storage area.  Eric Paddock, the Museum’s head curator of photography gave us a tour of the underground storage area of the DAM’s newly developed photography department.  He explained to us that the different areas/ departments of the museum had been collecting photographs that pertained to their specific discipline for years and years, but that it wasn’t until recently that the DAM decided to create an entire photography department to organize and preserve their collection of thousands of photographs. 

            The first images that we got to see were two original Daguerrotypes.  I had heard about Daguerre’s photographs before, and learned how they are printed on silver plates, polished until they have a mirrored finish, but had never seen one up close.  The detail in the images was amazing, particularly for how primitive the process was.

            Following the Daguerrotypes, we got to look at an original print made by Henry Fox Talbot.  The print had a sepia tone to it, and was a landscape image of a town in England.  The detail in the photo was impressive, but not as much as the tiny Daguerrotypes.  I was surprised to find that a print as rare as an original Fox Talbot was housed in storage rather than out for the public to see.  It was later explained to me however, that one of a Museum’s main purpose is preservation, which obviously explained why the print was not out on display at all times.

            The chance to see some of the museum’s oldest prints was very interesting.  Like I said before, I had read about Daquerrotypes and Fox Talbot before, but seeing them in person completely changed my perceptions of the alternative processes used to create the images.

January 20

studio: Leah

january 19

studio adam

January 18

studio

January 17

I like this photo but I'm not sure if it's representative enough of the overall project.  This could be an elevator to anywhere really, so I dont know if it makes sense to the project overall.

January 16

I feel like some of these images are not related enough to the subject or are not interesting enough, so I need help weeding some out and determining if they work with the overall theme well enough

January 15

January 14

i started thinking of pictures that would apply to a project about my dad.  I decided to start with some images from the hospital and doctor's office.

January 13

I'm still looking for new themes/project ideas for my portfolio.  I thought about doing some studio work but  I'm not really sure what I want to do with that, maybe after I bring someone in and start studio work I'll get a better idea of how things are turning out.

After I got home from my first class today my dad had just gotten back from his chemotherapy appointment, and his anti-seizure pills were sitting on the counter, and they actually gave me an idea.  I might start looking for a way to do a project about my dad's brain cancer.  But like the studio stuff I'm not really sure how I want to go about it yet.

January 12

I had a ton of fun shooting at the Nuggets game last night, but the more I think about it, the more I'm realizing that I'm not going to have many more opportunities to take pictures like that.  Even if I get to go to another game that's not going to be enough to base an entire project on.  I know that I can go to high school games and things like that but without the crowd and the stadium the pictures seem less professional, or something like that.  As soon as the studio sign up is open I think I'm gonna try to get some people in there to see if I like that type of project better.

January 11

Yeah courtside seats!  Great chance to work on my sports photography, hopefully I'll be able to take photos from the sidelines... If not I'm going to have to start thinking about some more project ideas.

 

January 10

 No such luck on the snow day today, but the good news is that my first class is a field trip to the Denver Art Museum.  We’re going for my alternative processes photo class so we’ll get to look at the museums collection of old Daguerrotypes, calotypes, and more like that.  Should be interesting!

January 9

 Scratch the idea about going to the basketball game today.  The temperature dropped and the snow started falling like crazy.  The roads are a total shit show, so I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere today.  Hoping for a snow day tomorrow!

January 8

 After taking some photos at my brother’s basketball game I’ve decided that I’m gonna have to start my search for better lenses for sports photography.  I really like shooting the game, but was definitely getting frustrated with my lack of zoom, and that I had to set my ISO so high in order to get light enough photos in the dimly lit high school gym.  Some of them came out ok despite the bad lighting but I want to practice more in bad lighting so I’m going to the next game too.

January 7

No class, no work, and I get to see some friends I haven’t seen since before I went to Italy last semester. Thank God it’s Friday! : )

January 6

 For class today we need to put together a small portfolio of our work.  Since no one here at DU has seen any of my photos from my photography class in Italy I think I’m going to share my prints from my analog class.  The only thing is that they are actual prints right now, so I need to scan them in, which is a pain in the ass but oh well.  After class I plan to scan them in, I should really have copies of them anyway.

Photo Project Idea:

As of right now I have two ideas for our major photography assignment. Obviously I want to use this class to develop my photo portfolio, but I am currently undecided between two themes for my portfolio.  I want to continue the work that I did in Italy on the human figure and gestures, but I want to explore more inside the studio, since I have never used a lot of the studio equipment before.  I also want to get more into sports photography, which used to be a huge passion of mine.  I want to hopefully put together a small portfolio of crisp, professional looking sports photos.  I think my goal this quarter will be to make advances in both of these areas.

January 5

Today’s alternative photo class was really helpful.  We learned to make digital negatives, which is way more simple than I was expecting it to be.  After learning how to use adobe bridge, and then photoshop to create digital negatives we learned how to properly scan things in, in order to use them as part of our digital negative creation.  The detail the scanners produce amazed me!  I need some ideas of things to try scanning now.

January 4

 I’m really not computer illiterate, but trying to set up this blog has been a nightmare.  I must have set up 3 different google accounts before realizing that all I had to do was sign in with my DU email.  Oh well, it’s set up now, and is obviously my first blog, so I’m not really sure what to write about yet.  I need to come up with an idea or two about the one main photo project I’m going to do for class, so in order to come up with something new I decided to look through some of the photos I took during my color photo class.