Football has taken over my life (til mid November), so I was not able to go to a show this week. Back up plan....look up a photographer and blog about that. I am starting to lose track of all the photographers that Libby tells us to look up! She mentioned someone named Susan Seubert a while back. Her fine art website www.seuberfineart.com has many collections posted. It shows her most recent collection called Nest. It is a study of wild bird nests done in ambrotype. The result is that while the content and composition of each photo is similar, they each have a haunting feeling to them. The color of the tint and the burnt looking edges are beautiful.
In another collection, Dress-o-grams, she uses doll and child sized dresses to create tin-type photograms. In her explanation, she says these are a reference to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century custom of photographing recently deceased loved ones. The photograms are ghostly looking and have a feeling of history and sadness about them.
Another collection, Columbia River Gorge, consists of several beautiful landscape shots. Each has a black edge, which she explains gives a more documentary feel. The series comes from a piece entitled "The Ten Most Popular Places to Dump a Body in the Columbia River Gorge". From beautiful landscape to horrifying crime scene. I love reading the stories to these collections!
9.12.09 Amy Schueling Suasan Seubert
ReplyDeleteCourtney, I couldn't agree with you more. I spent some time online looking up some of the artist that Libby has given us and when I got to Susan Seubert I felt as if I was looking at a photograph of a ghost. The people in the pictures look as if they are morning a loved one or dead themselves. It gives me chills but I find these tin types very interesting. In the birdnest series I enjoy the burnt edges too. I feel like it gives the photo age and makes an inorganic object look organic. The contrast in the twiggs that make up the nest gives this photo depth. The horzontal lines created by the twiggs really brings the viewers eyes around the entire photo. The white blotch in the middle of the nest makes you think about the possibility of life, as in an egg. The burnt edges of the photo make me think that it was in a burning building.
Ah yes, the Columbia Gorge images...so dark. There is another artist, name escaping me at this time, that did a series of landscapes based on the dump sites of the Green River killer. Look them up, I am sure it will come up...crud, just tried and didn't find. I will look a bit more tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThe new tin type process is somewhat challenging to master, but once you do, you can achieve very beautiful imagery. Ask and I will share more in class...you can get a tintype parlor kit that has everything you need to start this process...something to think about for later in the term?
Libby