This project was based on inspiration from the artist and poet Bernadette Mayer, a NYC woman who made an amazing project about her daily life by taking thousands of photos each day for a month.  I suggested they try not to edit much.

The Everyday Project                                                                              Developed by Tessa Sutton

Introduction

The Everyday has had a huge surge in popularity recently, stemming from Dadaists and Surrealists in France in the early 20th century as they walked around cities and took to the streets, knocking fine art off its pedestal.  A return to the local as a microcosm of the global has been of concern to artists.  How can something mundane be made special?  What is your point of view that others can peek into?  How can the details of daily life provide artistic fodder? How can you find the poetic at home, on a walk, playing with your pets?  Try to catch people you live with off guard. Try to catch yourself off guard.

To gain inspiration, explore the work of photographers and artists such as:

Artists:

Bernadette Mayer – 1970s NYC

https://daily.jstor.org/everyday-life-revisted-with-bernadette-mayers-memory/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/07/inside-bernadette-mayers-time-capsule

On July 1, 1971, the American poet and conceptual artist Bernadette Mayer began to record one month of her life by shooting a roll of thirty-six color snapshots every day, developing them at night, and keeping a diary of her impressions. The resulting amalgam, a “crazy headed journal” that she called “Memory,” was shown as a mixed-media installation at a SoHo gallery in 1972: a honeycomb of more than a thousand three-by-five photographs mounted to the gallery walls, with six hours of narration playing on a loop. Whatever memory is, “Memory” was an exploration of the layers of what a person thinks they remember firsthand.

William Eggleston

https://gagosian.com/artists/william-eggleston/

Hannah Starkey

https://www.ft.com/content/dccde37c-e098-11e8-8e70-5e22a430c1ad

Larry Sultan

https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/larry-sultan-here-and-home/

You might find some more to research on here.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/dec/18/magic-in-the-mundane-photographers-everyday-gems-in-pictures

https://medium.com/vantage/5-photographers-that-find-beauty-in-the-mundane-7426918d4472

Learning Targets:

I can use a camera to demonstrate personal voice.
I can choose appropriate equipment and techniques to best demonstrate my ideas.
I can apply the principles of design to my images (emphasis, balance, etc.).
I can use asymmetrical balance to activate the entire frame of an image.

Research

1 On your Weebly under RESEARCH for PHOTO II, add the links of the artists above (need two) and an additional resource.  Make sure to provide 3+ sentences, written in your own words, explaining the significance of your artist and resource.

2 Find an additional artist that you think might be influential for your project. You will also need to 3 find one additional resource that helped you prepare for The Everyday. This resource could be a Photoshop or Camera tutorial, an article to read, or something else beneficial to your photography needs.

Assignment

1.   Find a variety of moments in your everyday life to photograph, and include simple moments that people might not see from your point of view.  What is intimate and off-hand in your everyday life?  What is poetic that you see everyday? What can be raw?  What might be disturbing or beautiful? Think about your point of view…the things you catch in your peripheral vision.
2.   Capture 20+ images demonstrating simple, mostly unedited techniques. Keep in mind this is about the everyday, so using your filters and controlling lighting and mood in the room and on your phone/camera is probably more important than editing.
3.   Utilize tools and techniques in Photoshop to enhance your compositions as you see fit.  For example, the magical in the Everyday.
4.    Edit 4 different images. Each image must contain different subjects. No repeated imagery.
5.   Upload your final 4 images on your Weebly Photo II page.

student images

 

explorations

Students always do research, shoot photos based on their research and then do photo check-ins before posting their final edited versions to their Weebly blog.  This time they chose minimalist photographers to check out and used their techniques.

Exploring david hockney and time

Students investigated David Hockney’s ideas on time and photography by watching a video and checking out my intro slides on the British painter.  They completed a project based on his observations of Eastern conceptions of space and perspective through making their own Joinery projects.  These consisted of multiple points of view around one emphasized focus.

Two-sided selves

(hybrid and Distance Learning)

Students researched self-portraits in various genres like painting, drawing and photography and came up with 2 final images after doing a photo shoot of 10-20 pictures. They had to show two different sides to themselves.

In this unit, the students researched abstract paintings and used poems to create images with texture, color and shapes related to their poems and inspired by their research.

Surrealism Project

(Hybrid and distance learning)