Dad with Tomatoes

And he's smiling.

New Image

Trying to change things up by shooting something I've never shot for this project before; in the rain, near dusk, and with movement. Not sure if it fits.

My sister

My sister is now living in Oregon. This is slightly inconvenient when I'm working on making images that talk about my family, and she's not here. So, I had an idea on how to keep including her, as well as talk about her absence. This is just a digital image of my idea. The light wasn't right at the time, so I didn't want to waste film. Thoughts?

What is this all about?

I have been endlessly thinking about my project: Was Once Home.

What is it about?

Thoughts that were purposed to me from a colleague:

:I am not sure who the characters are, and what their relationship to you and each other is.

:Don't be too ambiguous. Some images are not informative enough.

:The best familiar photo projects often thrive on our voyeuristic tendency to really want to know how other people live. We sort of bounce our own persona off the others, to either compare or reflect or to gain confidence that we're above (ie. our fascinations with celebrities).

What am I interested in with this project? There are a few things, but I know I need to narrow it further. For now, here are where my interests lie.

:My displacement; not having a home of my own.

:The need to explore the setup and changes of my parents house, and how the space I inhabit begins to mimic my parent's home.

:The people who inhabit the space. Their relationships with each other and myself.

:The subtle history the home holds.



Can these all come together in one narrow idea? Do I need to leave some of these thoughts out? Which is the most interesting to someone whom is not familiar with my family?

Renovating

Still working on this image. Can't seem to get the colors right, especially at the top.

An image of my dad's progress stripping the last of the carpet that came with the house when they bought it. He gave me a square of it. I loved this carpet!

Mother's day and Web Posting

Here are a few images from mother's day



My sister and my mother.



Self portrait #3 in this body of work.



http://www.photoreview.org/competition/portfolio.php/23/2

This is the 2009 competition that just was posted with one of my images!

On site

http://www.photoreview.org/competition/portfolio.php/23/2

This is the 2009 competition that just was posted with one of my images!

Lighting

Tried my hand at lighting with this image. I still have some work to do on it, but I like how it turned out.

Alternative Crit Space and Website

The weather has been working on being warm off and on lately. I hate not being outside when it decides to warm up. Usually I'm in class or doing work in my apartment. Since I'm the teacher, I was able to make the decision to have class outside. I didn't want my students to be distracted, so we went under the overpass and did an inprogress crit on the walls of that space. It was a lot of fun. A literal welcome breath of fresh air!

Also, I've been harboring endlessly on my website. I still have one more section to update, but for the most part it is up. Check it out. Any feedback would be great!
www.sarahbaranski.com

Dad

I have a few different versions of this image. I worked a little more on this one, so I could give it to my dad. He wanted one of him smiling. I think this is the best image I have of him to date. I was shooting with Kodak Portra instead of my usual Fujifilm, so I decided to try different lighting to help with that. I like how it worked out. I'll be posting more soon, and hopefully an update on the website by the end of the month.

Eugene Richards

Went to the Gage Gallery Thursday night to see the opening exhibition for Eugene Richards photographs:
A Procession of Them: The Plight of the Mentally Disabled

The images are powerful. Taken in Mexico and Paraguay at institutions for the mentally disabled, Richards shows the shocking conditions people of the aforementioned nature are thrown in. There are puddles of urine and patients lying in their own filth. At some of these institutions there may be one attendant for a least a hundred patients.
There is text on the wall which reads as powerfully as the images:

"It's a prison that chases us day by day and kills us by injecting us with medicine."
"There's an old woman who's been here for forty years, left over from the past."
"I don't have a comb, a toothbrush, clothes. I don't have socks. No one has."

I admire Richards work. I even included his work in my thesis paper for graduate school. What I admire most about him, is the change which happens from his work. Some of the institutions he photographed were shut down because his photographs were able to irrefutably describe the inhumane nature of treatment towards these people. His narratives are so powerful, and the inclusion of text makes them so. My thesis paper argued that text is needed alongside the photograph in order for the viewer to correctly interpret the image. Richards solidified my argument by saying in his lecture that he doesn't trust images, which is why he includes large amounts of text.

I awkwardly went up to him after the lecture to thank him for his images, to tell him about me including his work in my thesis paper, and to ask him to sign my books. He signed one of the books (50 Hours), which included text by his late wife Dorthea Lynch, "For Sarah, From Dorthea and Gene". I thought that was sweet. 50 Hours incorporates images of a birth and images from a protest, as well as text by Dorthea dealing with having cancer and not being able to have children of her own. The images and text all tie together about the concern for the future of children. It's a very powerful book.

I had a hard time finding images of his that were large enough to include in this post. So, instead of posting one body of work, I've posted a retrospect of Richards' work.

More of his work can be seen at www.eugenerichards.com

Teaching/Newish Photo

Had a crit with Bill a week and a half ago. Here is one of the images that Bill liked, and I agree with. I think this image is the beginning of a good direction with my project. I've given up relying on the sun to come out in order to make the pictures I want. I think I'm going to try my hand at lighting. We'll see how that works. I think light plays an important role in this project. It establishes reality from nostalgia.




I'm teaching a Digital/Color class at Judson this semester. Really excited to be teaching a medium I somewhat work with.

I have challenged all my students to post at least one image weekly on a class blog. They are supposed to write about why they chose that image, and what it means beyond themselves and their subject matter. A little weighty, but I think they're up to the challenge.
Here's the link:
http://judsonphoto2.blogspot.com

Check it out, and leave feedback. Anything constructive would be great.