Current Thoughts

Well I've sort of let the gender representation idea go, but I am keeping the issues related to authorial voice and the constructed nature of art.

I'd like to comment on the common misconception that what nature photography is doing is simply capturing reality without mediation; the beauty of nature that would have existed exactly as the photograph shows were the author present or absent.

I feel that this notion is entirely impossible and that all photographs need to be thought of as images which are mediated by technology and authorial intent and that photographs (like documentary films) are not unbiased records but are highly constructed extensions of the artists' creative vision.

The issues of time and change are very important to why I feel that a photographer is creating art rather than recording simple facts. Things such as swaying branches, rushing water, and cloudy skies are beautiful ephemeral moments that photographers design into aesthetically pleasing creations within the frame. How can that not be creating art?

So I'd like to emphasize the idea that photos are chosen and calculated and I want to emphasize this by using photo editing to disturb, but also heighten my own nature photography. I'd like to bring awareness to the choices that I've made in creating this slide show and show that every photograph is taken from a particular perspective; that the camera is not simply recording reality as it exists, but rather is shaping that reality.

PLAN:

1) I have decided to split my slide show into three sections: Water, Trees, and Skies.
2) I'd like to comment on my choices and the manipulation that I've contributed to the finished product (perhaps in a Godardian way i.e. "I did this, I did that"... inter-titles or voice-over??)
3) The slide show will be an artistic product i.e. beautiful images and pleasant music, but it will be self-aware.

INFLUENCE:

Steve McQueen - Once Upon a Time
-Uses images from 1977 Voyager space probes which are intended to pictorially describe life on earth to other beings.
-Incorporates soundtrack with glossolalia or "speaking in tongues."
-"explores the artist’s interest in the relationship between sound and image, particularly between language and representations of our world."
-http://www.southlondongallery.org/docs/exh/exhibition.jsp?id=102