as a young photographer (28), currently shooting mostly color, i find myself shooting formalistic industrial landscape (see the newest image i posted in the critique gallery).
in art school i shot very personal work, all diptych or triptych, focusing on interpersonal relationships and exploring what emotion / story could be created or the viewer could create in a series of images. of course this wasn't original as it was heavily influenced by the work of michelangelo antonioni, cindy sherman, david lynch, and philip lorca dicorcia.
at the time what was in vogue was the environmental deadpan portrait. i found these interesting and i even remember reading in an ansel adams book recently (i think...) that dead pan was the way to go, the way to see into a person.
since leaving school i have found myself more and more interested with the industrial landscape. now i haven't been following contemporary photography at all, so to be honest i wasn't aware that this was the current fad. most likely my love for fomalism came from repeaded viewings of kubrick's 2001 and tarkovsky's stalker.
one of the major things that influence me are the current state of building and production of the things all around us. plastic, fake, build to break. in minneapolis newer condos (which are all over the place and are part of destroying many of the older industrial landscapes) are either rather modern or build to look like they were 100 years old. everything is so empty, devoid of life. older industrial complexes in contrast are so beautiful and seem to be disappearing at a rapid rate.
in america, at least this is my perspective, there is so little history and to reiterate everything is so fake and empty. the industrial landscape is where i find beauty, feeling, history...perhaps it is even an escape from the current state of affairs.
now i am not selling my work, nor am i trying to create images to be published, which seems to be part of this discussion.
as far as how this fits into history, i don't know. i know i am not doing anything original. at times i have set the goal for myself to try to do something different but forcing it never seems to be the way. i just try to see, react, feel in response to a scene, or set out from the start with an idea / feeling and try to create that in an image.
and maybe art school is the problem as many have said in all the differnet disciplines
in an art 'school' you can't teach someone to be creative but you can teach how to be formalistic and how to compose.
i may be wrong about this but this is probably the largest generation (20's - 30's) to have been involved in art school...
and what am i trying to exhibit? i don't know. for now i am reacting, feeling, experienceing. perhaps i am young and mis(or un)directed but i am just growing as an artist
...i think...