First Panoramic Image

Sally Mann

I have seen this video on Sally Mann once before, and even after viewing it this second time, I'm still unsure of what to think of her. I admire that she takes pictures because she enjoys it, and that there is not an intentional greater meaning that she is trying to communicate. She took pictures of dog bones because she took one and liked it, so she decided to take more; in her mind she is taking pictures because it is what she enjoys doing. I suppose how someone feels about her can be attributed to the culture that the viewer was raised in. It is hard for me to imagine taking pictures of my children like that in today's times because of all of the potentially negative things that might happen. But if I try to put myself in the context of where she is living, and how she was raised, then I understand her mindset behind the photographs; they were her children and they were nearby, so using them as a subject in her work was a no-brainer. I disagree with her daughter in that I believe the pictures of the immediate family is what she will be remembered for most; but I did enjoy looking at her landscape photographs, and the process behind creating them. I think it's admirable in today's digital times that she continues to take pictures using older methods, especially the collodion prints. It seems like it would be very fun to try and make prints in this manner, and I like her outlook of hoping she doesn't screw up completely, but maybe just a little bit to make it more interesting; this outlook just speaks more to her making these images for fun. Controversy or no controversy, her pictures are beautiful compositions that I enjoy looking at.

Collier Schorr

I thought it was interesting how Collier Schorr immersed herself into her subjects in order to photograph them. She wanted a strong relationship to form between the subject and the viewer, and for this she created a strong relationship between herself and the subject. She built a relationship over several years with a family in Germany, and used the sons in her work. She would have them portray soldiers, both German and American. These were not to show just a German Soldier or an American Soldier,, but what was beneath; the person. When she was photographing the wrestlers, she spoke of how she had a friend who was a wrestler, and how they spent hours discussing only wrestling. She would ask questions about things that were second nature to a wrestler, but that she needed to know for her work. She was so involved with her work that while she was photographing, you could see someone get body slammed almost into her; it seemed like she just enters a zone where all she sees is what is through her eyepiece. It was also interesting how she said she wanted to explore life, and explore what it would have been like to have been born a boy; so through her work, she was doing this. She was capturing moments of male adolescence that intrigued her because they were foreign to her.

Roni Horn

Roni Horn does very interesting work. I enjoyed the images of water the most because I feel they are closest to what I look to do. I like to show images of objects that most people do not "see" anymore because they are exposed to them so much. But if you take a snapshot of these objects, it forces the viewer to look at them in a different way than they normally would. What was really interesting about her work is that context plays a large role in the viewing and interpretation of the image. They are not just images that get placed in a portfolio book, they are placed in locations that contribute to the interpretation of the image. The images of the water were placed along the hallways and classrooms of a university. This relationship between the water and the students made you not only view the water differently, but also how you viewed the students. Her series of photographs of the clown were placed in a confined space inside of an old bank. Because her work is placed in such uncommon places, it forces you to take the context of the work into account as you view it. The series in which she places the images in freestanding class frames was also great to look at. Because the frames were arranged in a non-uniform manner at different angles, the reflection of one image would be shown superimposed onto another; this would change as the camera, or the viewer moved around the room. So you can see the same image from multiple angles, but because of these reflections, it is almost like you are seeing different images.

Stefan Sagmeister

The main aspect of the segment on Stefan Sagmeister that stood out to me was the album cover in which an intern carved hand-lettering into the skin of Stefan himself. This type of dedication to your work extremely admirable. To me, the usage of hand-lettering brings a humanistic feeling to the piece it is applied to. I think this goes well with album covers in which you want the listener to connect with the artist, and the album cover can help push someone to buy an album. I also agree when he mentioned if he gets a flyer with a small helvetica title and little logo on it, that he is actually turned away from wanting to read it, because it will bore him; I am the same way with flyers and advertisements, if they don't instantly get my attention, then I have no desire to read what they are advertising. I think this has more to do with taste rather than one design being more correct then the other. If the person who created that corporate flyer with the little logo on it saw a piece by David Carson, they would probably have no desire to read that either. However I think some of the pieces by Stefan Sagmeister are able to bridge this gap because on the one hand, they appeal to the so called "grunge" audience, but his work is so interesting and unique that I'm not sure anyone could ignore it.

David Carson: Part Deux

The second segment about David Carson went into more detail about his thought process for some of his designs. I think the saying "necessity is the mother of invention" pairs well with his work; when explaining the snowboard article he designed, he mentioned how there wasn't enough text to get the look he wanted, so he just repeated the article twice. I don't know how many people would have thought to do that; many might have tride to enlarge the text or abandon the idea entirely, but Carson was able to think outside the box and come up with an effective design for the piece he was creating. The same goes for the article on Lyle Lovett, he let a photograph of his feet become his protrait for the article. Many people get so obsessed with following the usual rules in design, that their creations don't end up standing out like they want, they blend in with the other designs that are already out there. Trying new things can yield great results, as well as unsightly creations; but you won't get either one if you don't at least try.

David Carson

What stuck out to me most about the segment on David Carson we just watched is when he said "Don't confuse legibility with communication." I have seen the rest of the film and there are generally two viewpoints: neatness, order and staying within the lines, and going by feel, if that means breaking the so called rules then that is what you do. Just because you create a design using Helvetica with clean lines and use a grid structure, doesnt' mean that it gets the point across; like David Carson said, it could be the wrong communication. It seems pointless to try and distinguish the "right" style of design, because each design needs to speak a certain message, and the product determines that message, not the designer. I am doing a research paper on Massimo Vignelli for another class, whose work I enjoy; but every time I see more of David Carson's work I kick myself for not choosing his work to write about; not just because of the way his art looks, but because of his mindset behind the creation of it.