Medium Specificity

 Medium Specificity Artist’s Statement

            Within the artistic medium of photography, I have often found photographers exalting the everyday.  I’ve often seen pictures that try to portray the beauty of ordinary objects or situations simply by offering unique angles or some dramatic lighting.  I personally really enjoy this element of photography and the idea of turning the mundane into a visually interesting form. 

            In an attempt to celebrate this aspect of photography, I attempted to take pictures of various foods in a circular container all from the same angle, all with the same lighting. I didn’t shape the food or anything; I just placed each individual item in the same spot and took the photo.  My hopes were to have someone who came in with no knowledge first look at it and wonder what it is.  Once they realized that it was just a container of food that they probably use frequently, I would hope it would sort of surprise them or make them chuckle to see such an ordinary and common thing from a strange angle. 

            I also wanted to show to the best of my ability, the beauty that can be found in extremely minute things.  For instance, the various textures of the foods I photographed, and the way the light bounced off of it to create interesting shadows and such.  I photographed quite a few different foods, but then picked the ones I thought looked more interesting.

            Whether or not these actually are interesting is up to the viewer.  I can honestly say it was interesting to me because I actually was sort of doing this before I even decided to do it as my project for this assignment.  I don’t mean that I was taking pictures of foods.  That’s not a hobby of mine or anything, but I was having a delightful snack of Oreos and milk.  Like any sane person would, I let the Oreo float in the milk for a minute and contemplated life, because that’s what you do when eating Oreos and milk.  I started to watch how the milk dissolved the Oreo, and how it seeped through the intricate designs on the surface of the cookie.  I honestly found it pretty mesmerizing and wanted to take a picture of it… a few minutes later I started doing it with other foods to see if they might look interesting, and they did, at least to me.

            With the resources we have today, you can Google Image search pretty much any ordinary object and find a large reserve of crappy pictures of that object, but sprinkled throughout there will be an interesting one here and there.  What comes to mind as an example of this to me though, is actually the documentaries Planet Earth and Life. While these are not collections of still photography, and definitely go beyond the everyday, they have everyday things in them like certain plants, or even bugs that we have all seen.  And yet, you could take several freeze frames from these documentaries of simple objects and they would look beautiful.

            As part of our reading this week, we looked at a picture in the book of a model’s picture before and after, and the notes the artist took on how to make her beautiful from the before to the after.  If my project here was commenting on anything, it would be that you don’t actually necessarily need to alter things to make them interesting or pretty.