Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Miniscapes

 "Aerial View of Black Desert"
 "Maple Mountains"
 "Gold in the Garden"
"Catastrophe"

When I was around seven years old, I remember my grandmother handing me her drugstore disposable camera to document her sixtieth birthday. I remember her bragging on my eye for composition to many people after seeing the results. Before social media and computers were really a thing in my life, I actually did go through old photo albums pretty regularly. Personally, I think that was the hieght of photography. Several Christmases ago, I got a pretty nice digital camera that I obsessed over for a few years. Since then, I've had a falling out with photography, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps its the plethora of photos on the internet that have fallen prey to vanity, or the fair amount of uncreative photography I've seen that is so bad that it suffocates my own desire to create via camera. Whatever the reasons, my falling out has resulted in my photo stream being cluttered only with pictures of homework problems, powerpoint slides and professors' office hours. All this to say, my photography above is a little dated.

"Miniscapes" was my AP art portfolio backup plan. I took a some of these shots a few summers ago in a forest in Sweden, and one ("Maple Mountains") at the Grand Canyon National Park. I like the concept of small things pretending to be great platforms for life. Dollhouses fascinated me as a kid and they still do. I have once been much quicker at seeing the details and appreciating the whole more. Observing the often overlooked gives me a fresh perspective on how I view things I see all the time. Really, that is the powerpunch of photography that many people have missed.

-M

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Despite Apathy

"Affliction of Apathy"

The most disgusting thing is to see a life wasted -- a person working on something with such dispassionate style. When I see such people I want to despair. Conversely, people with a good sense of their purpose just radiate life in all they do. They are fires that cannot help but burn all that is in sight. Society seems to hold passion as a virtue essential for reaching "success." But culture preaches that a good life consists of being lazy and enjoying things like social media and Netflix. The mixed messages seem to have produced a generation that is able to do much but is willing to do little. So many people I've met simply don't care about things that will not give them any immediate reward. I've found it so easy to believe this, too. However, caring only about things that effect me is the loneliest and most disparaging worldview of them all. I always miss the good parts of life. Apathy is poison that kills purpose. It takes a strong heart to take the risk of being compassionate and spread the goodness of love in a world that is aching for it. 

"Affliction of Apathy" was made in response to this. The yellow frame around the baby-faced teens is hinting to the iconic National Geographic frame, by the way. I haven't liked collages much in the past, but I'm warming up to them. I'm pretty pleased with this one, maybe even more now, three months later.

-M