Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Reading for Thusday, September 23: Uta Barth
Uta Barth's work is more about the act of seeing, than of the subject itself. The example images from the article show pairs of photographs which photograph the same subject in different ways. Take one pair, and discuss how Barth uses similarities and differences of the repetition to emphasize the act of seeing (visual perception).
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Uta Barth's images use color, point of view, and distance to challenge the construction of our perception. While some of her approaches are fairly noticeable I am particularly drawn to the first pair of images because her adjustments are so subtle but effective. While mirroring her ideas of human perception Barth deconstructs our sense of distance,light, and spatial geography.The use of repetition eliminates the of the subject for the value of the image and its distortion.
ReplyDeleteThe pair of images that I found particularly interesting were the ones that were taken at night from inside a window looking out. I thought they were successful because many people have experienced where a window can either showcase or detract from a situation according to whether inside or out has more light. Barth demonstrates this perfectly by showing basically the same picture, but one that has no lights on inside and then one that does. In the one with no lights, there is a much more natural feeling to the image and you can see a fair amount of what looks like a backyard. On the contrast, the second image has an interior light that has been switched on, and the result is that you not only lose sight of the backyard you see almost a perfect reflection of inside. Even if it is not immediately recognizable that it is the inside you are seeing, the color temperature of the light seems typical to a household. Although you can make out some of the trees in both images there is no question that they are more apparent in the first image due to depth of field and lighting.
ReplyDeleteUta Barth takes subtle images that play with our visual perception. She adjusts lighting, depth of field and time of day to challenge what we see. The article states, " her pictures imply a duration, a sense of perception that unfolds overtime." I found this quote particularly compelling in her window series. Barth takes two photos through her window but one image is taken with a plethora of interior light and the other is not. The image with a lot of light overpowers the exterior, we become focused on her lights, walls and doors inside rather than her backyard. In the image with natural light, our eyes never notice the interior, we simply focus on what's in her backyard.
ReplyDeleteI really found Uta Barths images very interesting. I love that she is questioning how you see things and how viewing is a large part of interpreting. An image isn't simply an image by itself and that interpretation plays a big role on what people think of an image. Through the lense of the camera she took pictures and changed certain things in them so they were seen differently even though they were mainly the same thing. I enjoyed looking at the pictures of the tops of the tree. One looks like it could have been taken at night and is rather creepy. It reminds me of Halloween night! THe sky is dark and the tree is lit up very brightly and is over exposed. The other photo has a brighter sky in the background. The first one looks like a cold dark night and the second like a warm spring or early fall day. This demonstrated the same image but in a different light, literally.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the images produced by Uta Barths my favorite images from this reading were the ones on page 9 in which there are two trees one is with a white background and one is in a black background, She shows the difference between night vision and day vision in these images by changing the background color and adding the yellowish color which she places in between them. She uses very similar images and in some cases the same images, but adjusts them by changing color saturation or cropping to confuse the viewer. it is quite interesting and a different approach from what I am use to seeing
ReplyDeleteThe pair of images that I want to focus on are the telephone pole and the tree. Here she adeptly uses the act of blurred motion in the act of seeing to convey the idea of progression, perhaps from nature to a more industrialized culture. In the first image the telephone pole and the tree seem to be one in the same, and essentially they are the pole is made from wood, yet there is so much more behind the formation of this part of nature to bring it to its current state, which in the second image is clearly shown by the clear focused picture of the pole and even a suburban type of house.
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