Friday, November 22, 2013

Andres Serrano's "Immersion (Piss Christ)



Andres Serrano’s “Immersion (Piss Christ)”
From a series of photographs that Serrano took in 1987 of several classical statuettes immersed in different liquids;  milk, blood, urine.
 It is a 60 x 40 inch Cibachrome print, “A darkly beautiful photographic image...the small wood and plastic crucifix becomes virtually monumental as it floats, photographically enlarged, in a deep rosy glow that is both ominous and glorious”
It caused immense controversy.   It won a competition sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts but Catholics were outraged, Serrano himself received death threats and lost grants, and in Australia it was vandalized after The Archbishop of Melbourne lost an injunction in court to restrain the National Gallery of Victoria from showing it.
An art critic and Catholic nun, Sister Wendy Beckett, stated that it was not blasphemous, it was “What we have done to Christ”, the way contemporary society came to regard him and the values he represents.  Serrano himself said that the Piece was not intended to denounce religion but alludes to the commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture. The issue is that if he had not mentioned the urine nobody would have cared about the picture. There goes FREEDOM OF SPEECH...

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Humas of UTSA

 Q: What makes you happy?
A: Waking up in the morning, giving thanks to 
God and knowing I'm going to 
work and make my family happy.

 Q: What keeps you motivated?
A: Having goals and achieving them.

 Q: What was the happiest moment in your life?
A: Meeting my mom for the first time after 15 years.

 Q: What was the happiest moment in your life?
A: When I was accepted in the colleges I applied to
because I knew my life was going
in the right direction.

Q: What would you do if you were told
you only had 10 minutes to live?
A: That's easy! I would concentrate as deeply
as possible on the Lord.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Color Critique

In Liz' photos the one I liked the most was the cat picture, I loved how the white blends with the background and on the upper part the blurry greens give it a very intimate feeling. Mostly all white, the nose of the cat in pink gives the picture that touch of color needed for the assignment. The other one I liked was a little white box, grey background and a green figure that gave the picture a nice focal point. in those pictures the focus, the depth of field and the color arrangement were great.  She asked what could be done to improve so we talked about the elevator light and the sort of bubble gum pictures that the focus was a little blurry, and the depth of field was not used correctly, I mean the main subject was a little out of focus and the foreground was clear (this happened in both)
Enrique's pictures were varied, very colorful, the one with the stickers was full of different colors, very well focused, he uses aperture and speed to his advantage,  at first I thought it was too much color (I remembered your comment of the vomit of color) but looking closely it made sense, they matched.
I liked the depth of the parking place, though the car I would have erased, it bothered me, the rest was great composition, subdued color, good focus, good picture.  The one of the flowers was very well lighted, the color was sharp and bright and the background worked well being out of focus. I also liked the door with the graffiti, the sides of the door with what seemed to be bones worked very well for the composition, to give your eyes a rest from all the colors in the door.
I gess there are great pictures around the class, I wish the projector worked better to see everybody's work.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

assigment #1 composition


                                         Aperture: F/5.6  Shutter:1/25 sec  Converging Lines



 

                                      Aperture: F/5.6  Shutter: 1/20 sec   Frame Within a Frame



Aperture: F/8  Shutter: 1/500 sec   Curvilinear Lines
 
 
Aperture: F/5.6  Shutter: 1/100 sec   Closed Frame
 
 
 
Aperture: F/3.5  Shutter: 1/125 sec   Shape
 
 
Aperture: F/5.6  Shutter: 1/50 sec   Zig-Zag
 
 
 
 
Aperture: F/3.5  Shutter: 1/640 sec  Movement, Stop Motion
 
 
Aperture: F/5.6  Shutter: 1/800 sec   Horizontal Formal

Aperture: F/5.6  Shutter: 1/2656 sec   Asymmetrical Balance
 
 
Aperture: F/5.0  Shutter: 1/25 sec   Alternate Point of View

 

composition exersise

                                             shutter: 0.3 sec  aperture F/5.0  frame within a frame