Last Day

Picture taken from Canta and Ely (http://www.flickr.com/photos/cantaely/)



I am sad that this is the last day of class. This has been my favorite class-full of friends, hilarious moments, and the coolest teacher ever!

My last project was the words project-portraits of my friends and their favorite words. I wasn't completely successful. I need to work on my editing. It was good hearing the constructive criticism. Mostly, people enjoyed it though, I think.


The link to the preview of my book project.

http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/683213

Rhyen Coombs

I was watching the news one day, when I came across a story about a local bay area photographer who was doing an assignment for her photo class about the hard-hit economy. Her project on foreclosed homes won her a Dorothea Lange Fellowship award. I think the ties between the Great Depression and Dorethea Lange's photography and our current economic depression and contemporary documentary photography is interesting. Really different in this case, but perhaps the situation right now could bring about some really iconic images for the future.

http://berkeley.edu/lange/2009/coombs.html

The last picture of the empty room reminds me of Jesse's work.

Interesting Things to Look At

http://www.hemmy.net/2008/03/12/kids-drawing-reenacted-using-professional-photography/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8WoyPEVRFo&feature=channel

More Campus Event Pictures

This woman was different. The only one welcoming Bill Ayers.

Ooh! Camera dude!

Campus Event at St. Mary's College

Some news vans.

People in a group.

The man is fixing his sign.

The lady shows me the other side of the sign.

This old man and young college student were getting into a real fight. They were yelling at each other so loudly. Eventually the police had to calm the old man down.

This was a protest in response to the college inviting controversial political figure Bill Ayers to speak. He was a cofounder of the political terrorist group The Weather Underground. They were active in the 60's and bombed buildings as one of their tactics to gain media and the government's attention.

My Decisive Moment Shots.

These are out of order.

3

4.

2.

5.

1.

1. A burnt bush in front of my town library. This was unexpected. It had already happened (the fire) and I had actually seen this burnt mass several times before passing by, but I decided to photograph it for the project. I collected some samples of the charred twigs. Makes good charcoal for drawing with. I wonder how it started. Was there a library arsonist? A smoker who flicked their cigarette into the wrong area? Molotov cocktail? Probably not. Someone who really hates books....

2. I spotted these fire trucks on the road while I was driving to school. Luckily I had my camera. This was not in relation to the library fire. I have no idea why this occurred either. No signs of an accident except for the police cars and fire truck. It's always fun to witness something dramatic though. I wish I had seen something horrifying and amazing. Some car in a ditch, or a bicyclist laying on the pavement sobbing.

3. Toilet paper in a tree. Really pretty. They couldn't clean the mess at the top of the branches.

4. Two red carts that were facing out from each other. I found them like that.

5. I saw this cart come crashing slowly into the car. It was a gentle hit. I wasn't quick enough with the camera to capture the actual action. Just the aftermath.

Photo websites

This is a really good photo website I found. I just like the layout of the website and it's not overwhelmingly full of images and artists. They're really good photos.

http://www.photographersgallery.com/

Also, I think I will be spending a lot of time browsing the magnum website now.

Response to "The Impassioned Eye"

A decisive moment captured by Richard Avedon.

I really liked this short film about Henri-Cartier Bresson. He is alive and speaking for himself in the film, albeit with immediate English translations covering up his French. It had nice piano music, occasionally showing the famous photographer bobbing his head along to it. He compared photography to music at one point. It featured Isabelle Huppert (La Pianiste, I Heart Huckabees) talking about his work. She said that she was used to being photographed and that she thought she knew how she usually looked, but when he photographed her, it was fresh and striking and it was as if he took a picture of her true nature. He was close friends with many other famous artists. Although, that usually is the case with famous artists. He was very modest and spoke simply about photography. I dislike being overloaded with technical subject matter. I liked the way he handled his prints with his hands, gently but casually.

The way he takes pictures is very intuitive.

He cares about the framing and structure of objects. It's very basic.

I love his work. There is a lot of whimsy in his photographs.

I could watch this movie again.
I would like to pour over giant books and collections of his work.