1st Assignment Selfie/Reading
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| "He should be home any minute" |
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| untitled film still #16 1978 |
The first photo at the top is my selfie speaking specifically to one of Cindy Sherman's photographs taken in 1978 as "untitled film still #16" located in Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. As seen in her documentary "Nobody's here but me" you start to take a deep look into Cindy's way of thinking and the thought process that went inside every photograph she's taken. There she also mentions her love for the camera and why their so special from the ordinary way of creating an image. When looking at the photo it gave a story just from looking at it. The women in the photo seems to be waiting for a man to come inside her house from looking at the frame above her that shows that she could be married. The gun in her hand and cigarette in the other hand could be that she plans to kill him. At some point in Sherman's documentary she mentions that most of her inspiration comes from the media since she was born in the age of television. Since women were always being portrayed as the helpless victim she took the challenge of spinning the stereotype.
My photo is a way of taking her same idea of "men" being the victim by placing a knife on the table. The cellphone in my hand is the equivalent to the cigarette and a way of showing the modern day theme of the photo. One of the clear distinctions of my photograph compared to Sherman's would be that the persona of my photo seems more anxious for what is about to occur. I wanted to create a feeling of anxiety for the audience viewing my photograph almost as if they were feeling the same my persona is feeling as well. This same "mirrored" feeling is what Sherman has successfully done in her all her photographs and is why she has become a famous contemporary artist.
Cindy Sherman is known not only for her photographs but her revolutionary contemporaneity. There had been millions of diverse persona's shes taken on the typical "nature of representation." To look more in depth at what photography really is meant for, one must take into account the significance of images including their subconscious and conscious way of influencing the world around us. As Susan Sontag explains in her article on photography she talks about how photographs change our view in class. We know this to be true according to our class discussions when using the pyramids in Egypt as an example. One thing I felt was very important that she mentioned was when she said, "Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire." In other words, the images made through a camera are just a small part of the bigger image that we own and keep to ourselves.
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