Some of my criteria for picking the best POWs from topic for are as follows:
I was looking for the use of various apps, including vintage and grunge apps, to make the photographs look old. This was the key ‘physical’ component of this topic. The problem arises when you just depend on the content of the photograph to approach this topic, then if the photographs come out to clean and in focus, your audience may be held in the current moment.
I was looking for photographs that present a place for me to go in my mind that would remind me of my own personal memories. Just showing pictures of old stuff doesn’t do that. You have to create the space through all of the tools we learned earlier such as framing, composition and the color of the light, and now adding the processing with vintage apps. I might also call this feeling Ambience.
I was also looking for photographs that portray a situation I might have found myself in in the past when something important or memorable happened. Even relatively simple pictures with specific objects can also be capable of triggering a personal memory. The object, however, still has to be in the context of a space that your viewer can occupy for some amount out of time.
The whole scene has to be balance between accessibility, yet not too general, and specificity, yet not too narrow. All this has to work together to point to some shared memory that is meaningful to all. The danger is that if the memory is yours only, and not accessible to others, then the photo becomes a snap-shot. If it is too personal and not accessible for other people to see either your memory, or maybe more importantly, to see their own memories in that scene, then there is little or no communication. And communication is the key element in all art photography. Again, it is the balance between personal and public information.
There are still too many pictures that are of a singular objects with no space to create context. Sometimes these objects are a bit too specific or too obvious and it looks like I’m being led. Some people shot good photographs but did not use any vintage apps to push them even further. Sometimes there are spaces that have been modified with vintage apps but there is a lack of visual beauty that could have been achieved with some extra attention to the faming and composition.
There are however quite a good number of photographs that have addressed the topic in ways that exceeded my expectations. You have done a very good job of thinking this set through. Here is some commentary on the photographs that are particularly done well.
This set starts off with nature but with far fewer shots than previous sets. The first photo by Jordan almost looks like an artist's brush has painted a line down the center of the frame. Chelsea's tree benefits from the subtle distortion of the panoramic shot fortified by the soft diffused color. Jordan has a close-up of what might be the last magnolia blossom of the year pushed up into the corner, allowing the background branches to blur out in the background. The next square photo by Maria of the fence on the beach is the first one in our set to use the vignette option, enhanced by the soft sepia tone, to make it more like a 'memory' photo. What is interesting here is that there is still some green left in the shrubs so is looks like a faded photo, and this plays perfectly into the theme of this topic. Allison's black-and-white photo puts us into the spot of the person who's doing the looking. We almost feel like we are sneaking up on something.
Brooke has a shot looking through screen into a garden with little drops of water still clinging to the screen. This is more picture of what the person looking through the screen is thinking than what is visually apparent in the frame. This is a nice psychological sketch! Ross’s photo offers a suggestion of what that door might look like, but it is still a little creepy (in a good way). Rachel B’s shot brings us back inside to reestablish the psychological viewpoint. This' vantage point' style is used again by Breanna but in a more urban setting.The yellow tape makes us a little bit afraid to look through the fence. The next photo by Allison looking through a chained up window into a desolate hallway is even more scary, although for some it might be quite inviting. There seems to be a strong desire by photos students these days to get inside of abandoned buildings. The desaturated color in both of the shots also adds to the mystery.
The next group has a little bit of an industrial theme. Allison has another black-and-white shot of an abandoned building, this time seen from the outside, but we are allowed to look through the empty window frames, through the interior space, and up through the hole in the roof. We can almost hear her thinking to herself, "I gotta get up there." Emily's photo has us looking through an entire empty building, then out the far side. A myriad of textures enclose the scene and we wonder if we really want to go into this space or not. The next photo by Breanna seems to be looking up into a ceiling that confuses one's sense of gravity. The gridded pattern rendered in a neutral tonality is almost painterly. Brianna has another great shot here of some kind of conveyor belt system in some pristine yet empty factory setting. It is the quality of light here and some of the reflective surfaces that make this a beautiful and fascinating photograph. Maria then allows us to get for a close up on some old rusted nautical chains. The crisp clarity of this keeps it a little bit glued to the present tense even though these chains have been sitting like this for ages. Perhaps a little vignette would've pushed it back in time. But still, the angle of view and the closeness of it makes for good composition. The collection of locks in the next photo by Rachel K., enhanced by a little bit of lens flare of the top, takes us back to grade school days.
Brooke carries us into the next set with this view through a cut glass window that both reflects and refracts light, and the subject remains in mystery. In another shot by Brooke we see headlights driving toward some mysterious rendezvous. David takes us into a long dark basement hallway that begs us to venture down to the far end. Alexandra presents as very dark photo that takes a while to decipher, but finally we see the handles of the knives. The minimal lighting and tonality both enhance the effect of this photo.
Continuing with these minimal interior spaces, Emily takes off to the edge of comprehension. Then Brooke takes us into this kitchen/ bathroom space, and then, again, Emily shows us a wall with, well, you tell me? David's next photo takes us to an exterior wall that is framed in such a way to make it almost function like a Mark Rothko painting, but with texture. Debora takes us under a bridge with streaming light and a pink arrow and a huge tire apparently chained to the ground. What a wonderfully bizarre collection of elements. And finally we find the guy hovering in the shadows. This is that extra payoff that adds extra value to a photograph.
Rachel K's photo of Guild House takes us into a nighttime environment. Sarah's extended landscape in black-and-white presents an even more dramatic scene. And Emilys trout fishing photo uses some vintage apps to create another dramatic scene. We almost wonder why the people on the left aren't scared to death. Lauralea gives us two photographs with very similar structure yet very different content. The first is looking under elevated train tracks while the second is a shot in a bowling alley. The vertical frame with an extreme vanishing point in both of these make them work together. They force us to draw some kind a comparison between these two spaces. And it also gives us some idea of how the shooter thinks. This pair gets into more of a conceptual reading.
Now we get into the more homey collection of photographs.
Ross’s photo puts us back on the steps of our old high school, not just by locale but with color shift. The next photo by Lauralea is a bit more clear but the color throws it back in time, getting us to think about those old days when we used to play basketball here. The next photo, also by Lauralea is almost a dreamlike vision of the old back porch. The shallow depth of field throws the background out of focus and make the whole thing very dreamy. Rachel B. shows us very wide "house scape" that again has that homey porch and just makes us feel comfortable. Sarah's vertical pano takes us to a colonnade that looks from another era thanks to the beautiful tonality.
A series of photos with a little more ambience begins with Ross's nightlight photo. It is black & white, minimal, and full of feel. Brooke's photo of a shaft of light hitting the steps creates a similar feeling. The bottle in Jordan's photo are apparently in an antique shop but they sort of remind us of our Aunt's kitchen when we were kids. The next photo by Deborah is a more masterful piece of work where she is holding up an old photo of the kitchen and front of the real place. Some things are old and have changed with time while others remain the same. This is a direct comparison between past and present, and including a photo in a photo is a really interesting conceptual tool. The last one of the set is Rachel B. having fun in her kitchen (maybe).
The return of a successful bunch of portraits and self-portraits this critique is reassuring. We start with a simple photo by Rachael K. that features a beautifully worn denim jacket with a couple of cool buttons. (I was almost waiting for her to superimpose a picture of her face onto one of the buttons.) The button form continues with the rather exquisite photograph of the Rachel B. Emily gives us a minimally toned and wonderfully obscured self-portrait. Lauralea continues with a very close photo with wet hair and closed eyes that is quite evocative. Allison obscures the next face with both material and light. Lauralea takes a similar approach in the next photo that is very well composed. The tonality is monochrome but not really black and white. The subtle coloration adds more feel to the photograph. The softness, lighting and angle of view all help to throw this image into the past. And Rachel returns with another black-and-white that seems wonderfully distressed (technically, I mean).
The next few get more obscured in various ways. Brianna starts by covering her face with a scarf. Again the direct gaze the eyes and the raised eyebrows have a lot to do with it. The next photo by Emily has an even more intense and almost demonic gaze and is overlaid with some sort of amazing texture. Brooke also overlays a face with foliage but this time the eyes are removed so the shot gets a bit more enigmatic. Debora's double exposure incorporates a different set of images, two faces and a bridge, and almost sets us up to imagine a long distance relationship between these two people. But that is just my read. The next photo by Alexandra is very deep and dark with the face hiding on the right side. The lack of accessibility just makes us want to see her more. What's that old saying, you only want what you can't have?
The last few go off towards the more abstract end of things. Sarah's shadow of a leg in stilettos picks up on some of the mystery and sensuality of the previous couple portraits. Rachel K. gives us a beautiful photograph that is simply light shining through leaves. The tonality makes it almost more than a memory than a real photo. Rachel B. gives us three very different abstract images, the first visually clear yet rendered almost unrecognizable by the way it is shot. The next is just crazy movement. The last shot uses blurred focus to good effect.
All in all, you managed to tackle the topic of Memory in many ways I had not considered. I congratulate you on your efforts.
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