Blog Entry # 2_Myra Greene

(click photo and it will bring to website)
http://www.flakphoto.com/archives/6333_1646490288/297234

Blog Entry # 2
Myra Greene
Untitled, Rochester, New York, 2006 — from the series Character Recognition

Ambrotype on black glass, 3x4"
An Ambrotype is when the photographer creates a positive image on a sheet of
glass using some kind of wet plate process.

SUBJECT MATTER: lower half of face, focus on lips

FORM: black and white, shallow depth of field(not everything is in focus), high contrast, a lot of texture in the skin and mouth. Even though it is a small image the face takes up such a large portion of the frame it looks like it is large scale.

****NOTE - For some reason the photo is being cropped right now when the image is posted. There is a little more out of focus on the right hand side which makes the image a little more square***

INTERPRETATION: Because this photograph is very up close and personal with the face it feels like it is asking a question of, "who am I" or "how do people see me". Now to be honest, I read a little about this series before I wrote my interpretation, which now knowing I should have done the opposite. I like oming up with the idea on my own, then reading what it is about and seeing if I was close. A photograph should speak for itself somehow, whether I agree with the photographer or not. I like coming up with my own opinion before I read about it. Anyway. In the passage the Greene wrote about this series was how she has been confronted with bigotry all her life, she wanted to see how people really saw African Americans. What about the features makes them who they are. Why is it that all people see are the features and the color of the skin and not anything else. I think this makes perfect sense when looking at this photo, it is so close and the depth of field makes us focus even more on the lips. If you look at the whole series Greene sections off different parts of the body...the ears, the teeth, the lips, the eyes...She makes them look more like objects rather than part of the body.
To me this is a very interesting way of looking at the body. The fact that it is in black and white also enhances the idea of being black/white.

I went home this weekend and sat down with my 13 year old sister who was really excited to see what I was doing in my classes so I asked her to help me pick out a photographer and photograph so I can analyze the image. We were searching for a long time until we both spotted this image at the same time, pointed to the screen and said "this is the one!" There is something about this photo that drew us toward it. The beauty of how it was frames, the detail and the contrast lured us in and made us both want to know more about it. Of course she got bored and didnt help me analyse (haha) but that's 13 for you. I feel like I should move away from the body images a little and step into something out of my comfort zone. That will be my goal for my next analysis. I'll maybe even throw some color in there!