Final book — pages

I cannot post the book, there are too many models to get approval from to make public in this context.  The completed book will be available to view in person during the final session of class.  The book is about Body Language, information from books that I am currently reading.

Funes Digital Arts Competition — 3 entries.

Can you point out the flaws in each of these?

Zhang Jingna — Artist Review

Zhang Jingna — Artist Review

Zhang Jingna or ‘Zemotion’ is an artist who I’ve been following for years. I originally found her on the popular art website ‘DeviantArt’ where she has become hugely popular. Since I started following her, she has not published two photos that looked alike. She has no one style, her photography style and post processing changes per shoot. He subject matter are mainly attractive and unique females of all nationalities but in vastly different settings from a wooded outdoors area to a club like setting to a cruise liner. She works in rivers, lakes, but especially the studio where she produces amazing works that have been seen in popular US magazines adversiting perfume.
My work does not compare to anything that she has ever done. Probably never will but I am inspired to try to mimic some of her techniques. Actually, I want to learn of how she became so diverse by reading what she has read and learning from who she learned from.

What is most inspiring about her works is how powerful her ‘personal’ photos are (click on ‘personal’ on the right hand side of her site). I can stare at these photos for hours and not figure out how she put the model in such a perfect position with dynamic, perfect lighting. The models never look uncomfortable even though they obviously are in some, that’s a sign of a professional model and a experienced photographer. Nothing repels me from her work. I don’t like some photos but respect them greatly for their unique style.

A self-portrait of Zemotion:

Timothy Samara — Artist Review

Timothy Samara — Artist Review

Timothy Samara is a graphic designer with a flair for typography. His work is more geographic than random or grunge like other artist we’ve/I’ve looked at in this blog. He uses 90 degree angles and color-filled squares in his work but does through in some random elements such as overplayed text over other text for a look at is cliché ‘futuristic’ in my eye. Not is a bad way cliché. The text, even when angled and varying in size is readable; this is due to his knowledge of typography which, like the last few artists on this blog, is why I’m reviewing his work.

Although my work uses far more photography than his (I only found one example of his work with an actual photograph), I am inspired to use some of these elements in his work on my photographs if only just to see how it’ll look. The geographic tendencies of his work when applied to my photographs will have mixed results but I’d only apply them to certain types of models and costumes. Already, I have two models in mind who ware techie, futuristic, and robotic costumes with shiny metallic and components that resemble electrical wires or magnetic clamps. Nothing repels me from timothy’s work; I would like to see the work become more complicated since mores of his works are very simple and book-cover like. That’s his artistic/practical choice though so it’s not a negative in my eye, just inspiration for me to learn his techniques and see if I excel from his works.

Robert Bringhurst — Artist Review

Robert Bringhurst — Artist Review

Robert Bringhurst is an older artist at age 63 who specializes in typography. He’s written books including the popular; ‘The Elements of Typographic Style’ which is what attracted me to his work. He’s rather straight forward and simple in his works. Most of his work is practical more than artistic but you do see his artistic side in some of his works which are, again, simple but very legible. His ‘logo’ which consists of several letter ‘e’s randomly put within a circle to emphasize the importance of typographic style.

My text work is random and focused on readability more than anything. Robert’s is structured but still focused on readability which is what I’d like to learn. He knows how to use words, letters, word style effectively. You’ll see his work on covers of novels where the works are varying in size and creating a structure like shape in place of a cover image. These structures are surprisingly readable and this is due to his understanding of text. His life is the word in a way. He makes his living off his books and is also known for his poetry. Knowing this, I’d like to learn more from him, his books as I know that he is a limitless resource of knowledge on the subject and my word desperately needs direction.

Ellen Lupton — Artist Review

What drew me to Ellen Lupton is the number of books on Amazon.com which she had published and the reviews are overall positive. She’s a author and editor of 13 books, several of which are about design and type. She is explains her work in these books and how to apply content/type to your own work. This is why I chose her, she makes interesting and exciting work but she knows why her work is desired and she has written books about just that. My work does not compare to hers, she combines so many elements from all media types. You’ll see much vector work in one book but then the next one looks like it’s filled with hand drawn images and snapart. She uses photographs within her work and vice versa to create unique images which I am very interested in as a way of ‘saving’ my poor images from being deleted.

That’s how you make a bad photo good, make it artistic!

One book of hers that I’d like to look more into is Graphic Design: ‘The New Basics’ which is filled with her and others works. This book is so divers that every page as different styled images to it but stays within the same subject. These are interesting works as is but in a book form with explanations as to their creation and use makes this especially valuable.

Alex Ingram’s presentation

Alex Ingram’s presentation

Alex’s work is unique in that the content and the processing/exposure are non-standard. His entries into the Fumes Digital Art contest in the Spring of 2009 were of society but with no emphasis on anything in particular such as fashion. It’s a mystery as to what he was trying to capture assuming that these are not just snapshots that he licked and decided to enter into the contest. His post processing is aggressive with the contrast and grain. Due to the grain and blurriness, I doubt that much of his work is destined for print which does make sense since in his presentation; he did not mention print and focused on the purely digital realm.

His presentation did not apply much to me since I’m not going to get a Masters in any visual art field but I did learn from his experiences applying to universities. Here are some thoughts that I had:

-His experience with the counselor at a New York school confirmed that working after your bachelor is best before pursuing a masters degree.

-Applying for masters should be done over a year before the expected admission date.

-be prepared to be charged for each application (like CSUSM).

Although I did not find much value in Alex’s work or his artistic opinions, he did confirm the above statements which I believe can be applied to any major.

David Carson — Artist Review

David Carson is an awarded graphic designer best known for his ‘grunge’ style which was popularized in the 1990′s.  He is a San Diego native and former teacher at Torrey Pines High School
who does not try to hide his passion for surfing in his artist works.  What differentiates him from other artists of the 1990′s is his random typography style which is now common in media and even seen in the art of the artists we’ve viewed in class.  This grunge style is what attracted me to his work, the random textures and type have always interested me, possibly due to my younger years as a punk rock fan.  

I have yet to experiment with grunge enough to have published works so comparing my ‘clean’ work to his would be like apples and oranges.  I’ll start out with typography, David Carson is a strong inlfuence for that.  Typography is one of his speialties, he did win the Master of Typography award from a magazine, one of his many awards.  The text in Carson’s works are part of the images and most of the works are hard to read.  This somewhat repels me.  I prefer the readable or impossible to read.  Hard-to-read strains he viewers eyes but impossible-to-read is ignored except in the artistic work as a whole.  Carson’s works helped me realize this strong artistic value.  His textures are selective which is different from my experiments which uses textures as a while over the entire image.  This offers a cleaner look with more emphasis on the shapes as opposed to the overall texture of the image.  

Although David Carson’s works are far from my level of experimentation, his work inspired me to try more different techniques and more importantly; his work helped me realized the styles that repel and interest me.

EXPLORATIONS 2004

  

  GIBBES Museum of Art, BEAUX ARTS

Katherine Westerhout

Symmetry, light, and location.

Those the three words that come to mind when viewing Katherine Westerhout’s works.  Symmetry because her work has left and right symmetry although it may not seem it due to the content within the structure she’s shooting.  If you look outside the paper, plastic, wood which is rotting and/or arranged randomly, you’ll see that the structure is almost perfectly aligned to the camera.  Light, at first I thought that she did not know how to properly use her camera but now I see that she, like all of us, is attracted to brightness and light.  The burns in the image still seem unnecessary with digital cameras but she’s working with what she’s got’.  Location is important for ANY photographer and with a known name like hers, she can get into many places where amateurs cannot legally obtain access to.  She’s able to find and shoot places that most do not know about which is a great benefit in differentiating her work from the average photographer pool.

Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky’s work is technical.  Not in the way that the subject matter was manufactured or involves high technology but technical in that his goal appears to be to get the best exposed image with numerous subject matter.  His work is content focused rather than the artistic.  The photographs give the viewer a sense of the the environment of where the photo is taken by using a wide aperture where all subject matter is in focus.  The photos invite the eye to look around the image, not just the solo primary subject which is often in the middle of the image, surrounded by interesting other subjects.