Photo Show Reflection

When I look at photographs I feel the most drawn to those that tell a story instead of just capturing a single moment or space. Ri Anderson’s work struck me as over the top morbid and contrived. It was hard for me to find any realism and the photos for the most part reminded me of a cheesy Halloween movie with the generic story line of “pretty dead girl- mystery ensues.” However, I liked the photo she took of the two people holding each other in woods with the very unexpected placement of a foot coming in from the side- I think it was called “Halloween.” That photo posed more of a question to the viewer than the others, in my opinion. Instead of having someone play dead and be the obvious focus of the photo, the foot was small, off-to-the-side feature of the picture so the viewer had to fill in the rest and rely on their own creativity. It gave your mind the first few sentences to a story and let you write the rest instead of construction an entire plot such as “girl found dead in a tragic situation.”

Amy Montali’s work has an honest sense of realism about them. They were all very morose and shady, like you were witnessing something taboo. There was one of a woman with her back to the photographer sitting down facing a man that seemed to hint at prostitution or at least something sketchy and illegal.

I think my favorite picture out of the entire show was “Palm Foot” by Thomas Gustaini. I thought it was very playful and humorous. The contrast in the picture with the static, flat palm trees on the wallpaper behind dirty, three dimensional feet with curved lines and imperfections really gave the feet a dynamic, alive feel. Also, the shape of a foot, with its trunk-like ankle, heel, and sole and leaf-like toes mimicked the trees in the background. I thought it was a very unique and interesting photo that didn’t have the same disjointed, unrelated feel that his other work did. Many of them seemed so haphazard that they really didn’t have any sensible flow. They didn’t tell a story or pose a question- I found them too random. However, I really liked his use of vibrant color and varying textures.