Sametime 1:04

I was also in Michael Lease's class last semester. I remember when I first saw his website I was enthralled by what I saw. I loved the ideas behind his project. And I thought a lot of the pictures were meaningful, with or without the use of the caption. Overall, I thought it was a really cool idea and a really interesting way to showcase everything that happens to someone in the course of a year. I think it's really neat that students in our class are trying to do the same thing. I think setting these kinds of goals for yourself as a photographer is a good way to grow because it's not always easy and a project of this nature is hard because you have to remember it every single day and find something to photograph that will capture the moment you're in. I'm not sure if I get the same feeling from Sametime 1:04 that I got from Michael Lease's version. When I look at Sametime 1:04, I feel like not as much effort was made to capture the feeling or the emotion of the moment. I feel like the photographer had their camera and just snapped a picture at the same time everyday. This isn't true for all of the photo's but I noticed it's true for some. I think if the photographers pushed it a little harder then I would get that same feeling from their work as I get from Michael's. In the end, I think they'll learn a lot that will help them as photographers in the future.

Amy Stein

First off, I just want to say that the Amy Stein lecture was my favorite out of all of the lectures I've seen this year. Paul Shambroom is a close second. I really like the ideas behind her work. Her series, Stranded, was one of my favorites. I love the idea of just driving anywhere, with no destination in mind. You don't know when you're going to find your next subject. And then you see someone, so you stop, not knowing if you're going to get a picture or not. I think the whole idea is really exciting because you have no idea what kind of people you're going to run into. I think her pictures really capture her subjects and their emotions well. Her pictures are often funny but they're also tinged with something else. And it's something I can't really describe. It's just an emotion that I felt when I looked at them, I'm not sure if anyone felt that way. Her project is something that I wish I could do now but being a student I feel like I don't have time to do anything much less take a cross-country road trip. I think her Domesticated series was really well done too. I think it's so funny that all we ever talk about is how we want to be more connected to nature. People spend millions of dollars on private homes tucked away into the mountainsides and then flip out when animals come close to their property. Before you were there, animals were there and it is in their nature to explore the area around them. We want to be close to nature and then when we have it, we're scared and we want it to go away. It's a really fine line and I think the artist captured that well in her series. Like I said before, Amy Stein was my favorite of all the artist lectures I went to. I look forward to seeing more of her work in the future.

Harrison Street Cafe

Wow...this is so late. I have been slacking hardcore.

I wasn't sure if I liked the show at Harrison Street Cafe the first time I saw it. After I saw it two more times though, I came around to it. At first, I didn't like the whole setup of the show. The pictures were hanging above the booths in the cafe and sometimes people were sitting there. So that was somewhat awkward, trying to look at the pictures while people are sitting right there. After we heard PJ Sykes talk in class, the whole setup of the show made sense. Basically, it's about getting the art out there, in places that you wouldn't expect to see art. If you can get it out there to more people, then go for it. I really liked some of the photos and then there were some I just didn't like at all. There were some pictures that I felt looked more amateur than others and I didn't really understand how they were considered "art." But then, what is "art?" I don't know if I can even answer that question. I've heard it debated and rehashed so many times. Overall, I enjoyed the show. I liked seeing photographs on display in a coffee shop, it was a nice change to go into a store rather than walk into a gallery to see art.