IDEA POST: 4/8/10 Getting it together!

Here are two images that I have been working on the past few day. I decided it would be best for me to work with what I have before I go shooting even more stuff for this project. I am continuing with the same approach I was before but trying to make the changes and time shifts I am thinking about more apparent.

The one on the top is similar to the one I showed at midterm. It is the same image but I manipulated it in a different way. I choose to try to show a "second" where the sky was still, like a break from the speed of time.
I have a few more images picked out to rework as I did these.

Its definitely crunch time and I have a bit more to shoot this weekend to be prepared for the panel review. I am excited about these two new images I am getting them printed so I can judge how they will look at different sizes, incase the details i choose to use or exaggerate are working at a larger size as well.

IDEA POST: 4/1/10 Revisiting photos

So I have been really lost with my project. I feel pretty defeated and I was thinking I was going to shoot the whole project over again in the next week and a half to have something ready for print. But then i snapped myself out of that mind frame.

No my project is not working the way I want it to. and No I am not sure how to fix it at this point.

But despite all this uncertainty I have a plan. I find it completely ridiculous to discard all of the images I have already taken this semester. So i have been going back through my weekly production and my notes and finding the pictures that appeal to me the most. I am evaluating each one as a raw file, thinking about what my intentions where when I shot the images, and what I can do to turn the image into something new that can speak.

Time is such a complex thing when you get down to the details that I am now focusing on one phrase to move this work along. "In the blink of an eye." I like these words because they are commonly used in all different kinds of language; in books, movies, news television, etc. It is simple and to the point and I want to see if I can revolve my images around this phrase.

Hopefully I can pull this together with approval, shoot a few more images this weekend and have everything ready for printing and get this show on the road!

Here are some of the images I am revisiting:

IDEA POST: 3/25/2010 Changes and Time

Since my last meeting and critique I have been trying to discover what I am going to do with this project. My focus is on time and change and it is interesting to talk about these topics but they can go on forever on different tangents.

Paul and I discussed how time goes by in different ways:
1. Most popular thought is that time is linear. This is how we all generally think of time.
2. TIme is also circular. Like how flowers bloom, die and then bloom again. Or like how ice can melt and then freeze again.

I want to bring the focus of the changes down to the idea of time.. time passing by and how time passes and things change. When a person sees the change that had occurred they wonder about the time that went by and what they missed. I think of this being similar to how sometimes when I sleep in late I wake up and realize that the sun is already high in the sky. I realize I missed half the day and wonder where the time went. For me this is all about the realization of time being wasted or missed. It is not a sad thing.. it is just a higher awareness of time.

IDEA POST: 3/11/10 Irreversible Processes

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5164
"What is time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate theory"

In this article Sean Carroll discusses ideas of time. He is interested in what he calls the "arrow of time." The arrow of time is his description of the way that we in our culture relate to time. We see time as a past, present and future. We can remember the past and know the present but we cannot "remember" the future.

"Time doesn't exist, it is a human concept, our own way of measuring change. There are irreversible processes, there are things that happened like you can turn an egg into an omelet but you cannot change an omelet into an egg." The idea of irreversible processes is the thing I found most interesting out of this article. Time is a strange thing because we can easily say that time does not exist, but when one accepts it as reality how does one explain their own world. Our lives revolve around time, clocks, deadlines etc. I am not sure how to explain my own existence without the reality of time.

Irreversible processes seem to me to be some kind of a clue to what time is. The example of the egg being able to turn into an omelet but not back to the same thing it started from. I guess that starts to talk about the elements that make up the object but at the same time it shows that we cannot reverse a situation.

This idea really gets me thinking about the changes that occur that people seem to not notice. Time can pass by and I miss things all the time. I water my plants but i forget sometimes and come back to find a little one dead and dried up. I completed missed that it was dying, it may be insignificant but it shows my unawareness and distraction.

IDEA POST: 3/4/10 what is a waste of time?

While searching for ideas and quotes to influence and inform my ideas of time I have been finding there is alot of discussion that time isn't real. I happened upon Griffin Davis's Facebook status that said, "What exactly is a waste of time, when time is only a concept?"

Time is like God, we are raised talking about both of them and the truth in their existence, as a child there is no question about the existence. They are real, but as we get older people start to question their beliefs. Some people decide they don't believe in God and somehow I don't know what I believe. It seems like I can't say its not real because I want god to be real but I dont know how to explain that he could be.

Time is different than that because I never considered  its existence until now.  I don't know how it cannot be real but it really is just a theory of the changes that occur in the work. This concept places us all on a timeline along with our actions and plans all on a timeline. I am not sure how to explain or imagine the world without the concept of time tying what had happened to what will happen.

William Penn said, " Time is what we want most, but what we use the worst." I thought this quote was brilliant until I thought about the existence of time. It is strange that we can desire something that is just a concept.

The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight. Maybe it can start tomorrow, from stealing all my time. This is a lyric from Lifehouse's song Broken. I thought the first line was brilliant and insightful and then I learned it was from a song, which just makes me feel silly that I thought it was so deep. But i guess music can be in some cases an art form and a true form of expression when it is not confused with the pop/rap cultures and lady gaga craziness.

These random different quotes have all started me thinking about what is time and what do I care about time. What do I want to validate in my images? Am I trying to prove something? Im not sure yet...

IDEA POST: 2/25/2010 Thinking about my work

I just had my meeting with Paul yesterday and it is hard for me to think of other things but my project and how I am going to go about shooting. I have been thinking about the artists Paul told me about and how they manipulated landscapes in the way that they did. One photographed one location multiple time to capture all the blooms of a garden and put them all together in one landscape photograph that showed all the flowers in bloom at once. The other artist would photograph one location for several hours and composite chosen people and objects into one photograph. Both artist created these artificial landscapes.

I guess time is something that people will never be able to see, we know it is passing and we see things change but we never actually see time. I guess time is a lot like wind. We see clouds move and trees sway with each gust but we will never actually be able to see the wind.

This image is one of Scott mcfarland's where he took many photographs of one garden and showed everything at once all in full bloom/ growth.

For my project i am envisioning shooting an image of a tree, idealistically shoot in a perfect composition, with just a small subtle change, one portion or side of the tree will show a transformation from bare branches to buds starting to form leaves.
I also image shooting the ocean, and capturing many boats going by and showing many boats on the horizon at once.

I like how the artist I described above created imagery that was slightly off that makes the viewer wonder what is going on. That is how I want to effect my audience. Through the subtle clues i them to realize that I am showing time passing.

IDEA POST: 2/17/2010 Death

It is really funny how things come around and influence the things we are working on. I am taking a Religions class called Death: Myth and Reality. In it we are studying what death is, and what death means in different cultures and religions. In the last class session the whole class was crying by the end.... I mean everyone. We were discussing euthanasia and the pros and cons for this controversial medical procedure. We were discussing situations where the patient is terminally ill and does not want to wait for it to get worse. We watched a documentary about this old couple, the husband was sick and losing muscle function quickly. He chose to be medically killed. I don't want to use the word "kill" but there really is not other word, but this is the act of being put to sleep and then given  medicine that stops the muscles from performing. Before the man was put to sleep, he told his wife, "Don't worry you'll know where to find me, I'll be at the Milky way and Little Dipper." Oh my gosh, I cried so hard.

But anyways One of the big points of this lecture and the class so far is about the meaning of life and the reality that cannot truly know the meaning of life until we know the meaning of death.We know what happens to the body when we die, but what happens to the consciousness??? Death is absolutely a huge part of our lives, we fear death, we fear the unknown.

Death is unpredictable. It can happen any time to any one. Our fragile bodies carry our consciousness, does our consciousness die with the body in death? I was occasionally taken to church as a child and Im not even sure what the Judio/Christian traditions say about where the consciousness goes. I know that every once in a while a hardcore religious person will approach me and ask if I am going to Heaven or Hell. How do we know what exists?? I think all these thoughts that are unconfirmed and we will probably never know the anwsers are the reasons that death is feared. I hope I learn not to fear death.

A book for the religions class is call "How we die" by Sherwin Nuland. She writes this book to tell us how we are most likely going to die and in doing so, suggests how we can live a fuller, more meaningful life. "'Oh Lord, give each of us his own death." This book is about the doors, and the passageways that lead to them; I have to tried to write it in such way that insofar as circumstances allow, choices may be made that will give each of us his or her know death." ( pg xvii How we Die)

For my project I want to really be able to speak about the value of life, not from a religious standpoint, but from a realistic awareness of the short time that humans live for.

IDEA POST: 2/11/2010 "Carpe Diem"

"Carpe Diem"

Everyone knows the phrase that means, "Seize the Day". It is actually from a longer sentence Carpe Diem quam minimum credula postero. The whole sentence means "Seize the Day, trusting as little as possible in the future."

With the project I am working on this semester I am thinking about this idea of seizing the day and not wasting or taking for granted the time that is given to us. Also during this semester I am taking a class called Death: Myth and Reality. Basically in this class we are learning about death and how different cultures deal with things in different ways. I have learned and realized that we (human) fear death mostly above other emotions. Death is mysterious and undefinable and there is no way to know what happens to a person when they die. 

I remember watching scary shows when I was a kid, and there is one scary show that I watched that has always stuck in my head and it was about a person dieing but they were still conscious of what was going one even though the were pronounced dead. In my Religions class we are learning about the Buddhist religion and their beliefs about death. In the buddist religion they believe that a person is cycled as they die, and there is a period of waiting time that is kind like Limbo. Its all quite confusing but the point is that they believe that the cycle is bad and to be released for the cycle one must reach enlightenment through karma. We watched a movie about Buddist monks who read books the dying men to help them transcend through the cycle and they continue reading even after the person is dead because they believe that the "soul" stays in the body for a period after death. I thought is was interesting how they believed the dead man could still hear him and that I always remembered a similar story from my childhood. 

Anyways I ranted about all this because I have been thinking about the meaning of carpe diem in relation to the mystery of death. We fear death, therefore we appreciate every day more, but what would we think of life when we actually knew the facts about death. We know what happens to the body, yes, but we do not know what happens to the consciousness. 

ttp://www.myartspace.com/viewer/picture/?pictureid=mkhtrumnra1lbwz1

this link goes to a Myartspace page of an artist from Northern VA. The website would not let me copy it. It is a painting and the image reminds me of a certain kind of limbo, all the people look like souls waiting for their next placement in the world or their enlightenment.

This topic makes me question the importance of everyday, and it makes me question if it is really important or if your life on earth is just another kind of limbo waiting for the next path. 

IDEA POST: 2/4/2010 "time"

Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.'
`If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you wouldn't talk about wasting IT. It's HIM.'
`I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.
`Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'
`Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: `but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.'
`Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. `He won't stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!'
- Lewis Carroll's Alice in wonderland and through the looking glass.

http://www.shurupov.ru/time/
For this post I really wanted to research some different things about time. In the link that is above it is a scenario laid out for the reader. It tells the reader to imagine they had a bank account where $86,400 are put in the account everyday, but at the end of the day any money not used does not carry over, it disappears. Then we realize this really isn't about a bank or money, it is about each day and the 86,400 seconds we get each day.

 I enjoy both of these clips because they are simple reminders of the time we are given. This is how I want my art to function. Both of these propose a serious question and give a light answer but it leaves the viewer thinking about it.