I like free things. A very nice free thing happened to me recently. The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown needed to fill a seat in a week-long photography workshop, and due to my powerful connections at the Work Center (thanks Dorothy and Salvatore!) I was offered the $700 slot free of charge. I'd never taken an art photography course or had my worked critiqued in any sort of formal, art-oriented manner. Really, I still very much benefit from basic practical criticism, like "you need to pull out the highlights more" or "next time you shoot in bright sunlight, try ISO 100 instead of 640, dumbass" or "why is it blurry?"
The course was taught by Connie Imboden. I hadn't heard of her. Have you heard of Connie Imboden? You should hear of her.
One of Connie's main bodies of work is a series of nudes shot partially submerged in water. She initially used surface reflections, and then began placing a mirror at the bottom of a shallow pool. The result is a sort of triple image: unless you have someone there to explain what's what in the photograph, it's almost impossible to tell what's above the surface, what's reflected on the water, and what's reflected in the mirror. You can stare at what you might later find out is a man's chin popping out above a thin line of his neck, and, even knowing how Connie works, and that it's a body part, have absolutely no idea what you're looking at.
(That's a foot.)
Google her and read about how Connie was afraid of water as a child and she faced her fear through art...or how the water is like amniotic fluid...or the parallels between going underwater and the inward psychological journey. Yes, yes, yes. I love that it's mainly about form. The photograph is a puzzle. It's about dismantling the geometry of a familiar object and rearranging our associations.
Sometimes it's about being creepy. Me? Fond of creepy, mostly.
The model for this one is Cindy Sherman's dentist.
No comments:
Post a Comment