Michael Blinn
Digital Photography
MET Trip
William Wegman, Dull
Knife/Sharp Knife, 1972, Gelatin silver print
When I
initially saw this image, I began to laugh because I could tell that the knives
were the same. Then I read the panel next to the image and saw that he used
“selective focus” of the camera-eye. It is an interesting play on words and an
interesting visual play. In my research I found that many of Wegman’s early
photographs examine specific qualities of the medium and its technology. These
include the transparency and reversibility of the negative or masking out the
background with a vignette. This made broader points about the vagaries of
knowledge versus vision, the ideal versus the failed attempt, expectation
versus reality. These concerns were often structured in the works via visual
puns, homonyms, and word play.
John Baldessari, Hands
Framing New York Harbor, 1971, Gelatin silver print
I found
this image interesting for a number of reasons. First, I wonder how the
photographer took the picture. Are those his hands? Are they someone else’s?
What kind of position was he in? I also like it because I find it also slightly
amusing. People take pictures today where they look like they’re squishing
someone’s head or something of that sort, so it reminded me of that. Baldessari
stuck out to me because I had studied him briefly last semester in contemporary
art, so I enjoyed being able to look at one of his images and digest it.
Gabriel Orozco, Vitral,
1998, Silver dye bleach print
This image
is simply beautiful. I love the way the lighting is done in the photograph.
It’s such a simple subject matter, but it looks so elegant. I stared at it for
almost ten minutes and got lost in the image. Despite that there were many
images around it, I was only focused on this one. I began to wonder how the
kites got there, who’s kites they were, where they were flying to. I looked up
what vitral meant in Spanish, since Orozco is a Mexican artist, and it means
“stained glass.” Maybe the kites are supposed to represent the different parts
of a stained glass window and the branches are the different parts in between
the different colors?
