Artistic Experimentation...

In the last few weeks I have been thinking more about art as a whole, and widening my focus from just photography. I have realized that since I have been taking photographs in the last several months that I have been look towards more than just photographers for inspiration and for influence. I have also notice that my mind has been working on ideas for several different ways that I can expand upon the medium of photography.

I have chosen film for many different reasons, and I do not see myself exploring the digital photography realm with my photographs. However, I do see myself exploring other means of photographic expression, and I am starting to experiment in some new ways.

One of the ways, that those of you that are familiar with my photograph may have already seen, is that I have been creating videos with my photographs. These videos are basically virtual slide shows, and I have added soundtracks to enhance to experience. The first video that I made was after I had been taking photographs for a few months, and I incorporated as many different styles of photographs that I had taken to that point to show an overview of my portfolio. I also used the beat of the particular piece of music to time the appearance of photographs to give a more dramatic effect both individually and as a whole.

The next video project that I have been working on focuses on the flower photographs that I have been taking, and it incorporates these photographs along with music to enhance the meaning of this collection of photographs. Also, I am incorporating thoughts from some of the greatest minds, and quotes will be shown over the top of photographs from people like Henry David Thoreau and e.e. cummings.

As far as future plans, my mind always seems to be further ahead than my shutter. Especially because I have come to consider that if I am going to consider myself an artist in any way shape or form than I must be trying to say and express something with my art. I do not think it is enough for me to take a photograph of a landscape just for the sake of taking a photograph of a landscape. I feel compelled to say something.

So, it is along those lines that I have begun to research my first project which is going to be called Life and Death in the Brazos Valley. I think that this project will take about six months to complete, which includes the research and actually taking the photographs.

There are also other ways that I will be experimenting with photography. In the next few weeks I am going to begin photographing things much more in black and white, and I will also be taking many more night photographs.

In the next couple of weeks I will post about upcoming artist events happening locally, and I will also spotlight an artist.

Internet Arts...

The internet is amazing.

I know this may seem obvious, but I think that I underestimated the depth of which the internet can be used for artistic expression and the arts community. There are thousands, if not millions of web sites, blogs, and vlogs dedicate to the arts. There are of course the web sites that are for official arts communities, professional artist and dealers, and for museums and art publications. But, there are by far much more “starving” artist, and these amateurs and working class artist have filled the internet with art.

So are so many people with so much talent, that I think it is revolutionizing art. I think that art is no longer just something that people have to go to a museum or art gallery to see. I think the internet is giving artist of all statures the ability to share their art with the world. The revolution does not just affect those artists who work in the visual arts, such as painting, and drawing, and photography, and graphic arts. This revolution affects the written word as well, and it is also affecting the spoken word.

Not to mention that an application for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts is just a click away.

Online there is a blending of art…it seems as though sometimes it is hard to tell where different styles stop and others begin. There also seems to be so much positive feedback between artists. On community sites and blogging sites there is a type of negative mist that seems to hang in the electronic atmosphere. From the dip I have taken into the world of art on the internet, there seems to be a positive vibe so thick that you could drown in it.

So, to support the arts community on the internet, every week I am going to feature a new artist that I have found on the internet. Look for the first featured internet artist on April 30th, and on that same day I will feature a YouTube internet artist.

Support arts on the internet! (I am going to have to work on that slogan.)