Petcoke: Tracing Dirty Energy

Hi everyone! I realize that it has probably been a while since you have seen anything new up on this blog, but the past few months have been kind of crazy. I have transferred to a new school, and I have been getting used to that (still not quite used to it, I feel like an outsider in a community where friendships and relationships have already been established).

With the transfer to a new school means a handful of new courses that were not available at my other school. I am taking a nature and environmentalism course. This class began allowing us to question what is actually considered nature. We discovered that nature is a social construction, something that is different to everyone. We have recently begun touching base on environmental justice. With this discussion of environmental justice, a huge topic has been that of petcoke.  Petcoke is a byproduct that comes with burning petroleum. This topic has become a rather popular topic in Chicago because the southeast side of Chicago has some of the largest petcoke storage (not by choice). Citizens of the southeast side of Chicago are rallying to get this petcoke removed completely from their environment for it can be detrimental to their health.

If you would like to know more about the petcoke epidemic, I suggest that you look it up online, several articles and stories should come up.

Otherwise, I suggest that you stop by the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago as I have today. The MoCP has an exhibit called Petcoke: Tracing Dirty Energy featuring the work of 8 artists, up until October 9^th. This exhibit really helps the viewer to understand what the people of the southeast side of Chicago are going through. Photographer Terry Evans has aerial photography within this exhibit of the BP Refinery in Whiting, Indiana and of different petcoke storage and movement along the Calumet River on the southeast side.

Now you are probably wondering, what if do not live in Chicago? How does this affect me? 

This petcoke is shipped on barges from the Gulf of Mexico up the Mississippi River. This petcoke is shipped via the railroad. So if you are in any way associated with the Mississippi River or even the railroad, you may be affected by petcoke.

Take the time to become aware of this environmental injustice as well as this health issue among those introduced to it.

I hope that you choose to take a stand against petcoke.

Mocp.org

Sorry For My Absence, Here's Some Reading Material

I apologize for my absence from here. The month of July was filled with school work and full-time hours at work. It's hard to believe it's already August. I'm coming off of a weeks vacation which was a great time.
Now I'm faced with the stress of transfering to a new school as a full-time student while maintaining my full-time hours at work and managing what will prove to be a long term relationship (for the most part, he's only like 200-ish miles away).

In spirit of the 2016 Olympic games, there is a photograph of Jamaica's Usain Bolt that has gone viral. The photograph shows Bolt looking over his left shoulder as he's leading the pack of sprinters and this grin just falls across his face. The link below is to an article that contains an interview with the photographer that captured that photograph.

How An Olympics Photographer Captured Usain Bolt's 'Cheeky Grin'

Remembering Bill Cunningham

Bill Cunningham was a fashion photographer for The New York Times, best known for his candid, street photography. Cunningham recently passed away on June 25th. He worked for the Times from 1978-2016; his column was On the Street and Evening Hours. The link below is a series of videos that Cunningham did on fashion for The New York Times.

Bill Cunningham Videos

The following link is to a Refinery29 article. 

14 Fashion Insiders Remember The Late, Great Bill Cunningham

Can Photo Prints Really Last A Lifetime?

This article from PDN discusses the different levels of how long a given print will resist fading. The article has a few technical terms, so I have taken the time to look a few of them up for you all.

Can Photo Prints Really Last A Lifetime?

LEVEL ONE:

Pigment Inks vs Dye Inks

WIR Display Permanence Ratings Website

LEVEL TWO:

Silver-Halide Prints

LEVEL THREE:

ChromaLuxe

LEVEL FOUR:

Pigment Inks vs Dye Inks

Exposed 2016

A few days ago,  the College of DuPage held a photography showcase for all of the advanced and graduating photography students. It was a night that gives the students a chance to show their portfolios to the public and fellow photographers to help gain a client base or even a potential job offering.

A successful night for all participants. Below is a list of participants, feel free to check out their work.

Chris Beach - https://websurfingbeach.smugmug.com/
Linda Buckingham- ljbouldinphotography.com
Ethan Chivari- http://www.ethanchivariphotography.com/
Meghan Daly- http://www.megelisephoto.com/
Robbie Dembowski & Ryan Ocasio- http://www.robbieandryan.com/
Uwe Gsedl- oova.photo
Jennifer Guitian- https://www.instagram.com/jenguitianphoto/
Syed Hossain- https://www.flickr.com/photos/smhstudio
Helena Jorgenrud- http://helenajorgenrud.com/
Lauren Laws- http://laurenlaws.com/
Adam Lee- https://adamphotogrphx.wordpress.com/
Matt Levins- http://mattlevins7.wix.com/mattlevinsphoto
Martina Magnusson- http://www.martinamagnusson.com/
Mike McPherson- https://a1000words.me/
Lorae Mundt- http://www.furryexpressionsphotography.com/
Amanda Pomplin- http://pomplinportraitphotography.com/
Elizabeth Salgado- http://elizabethsalgado.myportfolio.com/
Mike Smith- http://mikesphototreks.com/
Karen Wade- http://www.karenwadephotos.com/
Kathi Wood- http://www.kathiwood.com/

And as always, my website is: http://www.brittanymikelphotography.com/

Having Trouble Writing Your Artist Statement?

Writing an artist statement can be a difficult task for some people, myself included. I always asked the question, why do I need to write about my photographs? If I wanted to write I would have been a writer, and I'm sure many of you have felt this way too.

This semester I have been asked to write an artist statement about my recipe book. The dreaded artist statement, where do I even begin.?

Well, I finally received a "template" for an artist statement which consists of four (4) questions. The answers to these questions form your artist statement.

1. Describe what the final piece will look like, being as literal as possible. For example, you might start by saying "This is a photograph of my family on Thanksgiving. My mom, sister, and I are sitting around the table. The image is printed as a cyanotype and placed into a hand-constructed book."

2. Using the above description, elaborate on how the elements in your photographs come together to communicate your idea. For example, you might say, "Thanksgiving is a family ritual that has deep meaning and significance in American culture. My images examine the contemporary American family, abundance at the dinner table or domesticity. I have constructed my book to look like a family photo album to reflect the tradition of preserving memories from significant family events."

3.What is the relationship between the materials, tools, and processes that you are using and the meaning of your work? (This question is optional depending on the technique that you use. You may want to use this if your technique/process is not very popular.)

4. How do the ideas within your work relate to broader cultural concerns or human experiences?

If these questions are answered in complete sentences, you have a pretty good start to your artist statement.

A HUGE thank you to Lily Mayfield who supplied me with this "template".
Check out Lily's work here.

For more tips on writing an artist statement, click here.

Making the Most of Your Opening Reception

Tomorrow, I will be attending an artist reception for a group gallery show that I am in. It is my first gallery show, therefore my first opening reception. I went looking for ways that I can prepare myself for tomorrow night and found a very helpful link online.

Making the Most of Your Opening Reception

Museum of Contemporary Photography

Recently I took a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago with my class. It was by far the best exhibition I have seen there. It was an exhibition celebrating the museum's 40th anniversary, showcasing everyone's work that has been shown there from the past 40 years. Some names included Joel Meyerowitz, Sally Mann, and Dorothea Lange. Being that close to works by famous photographers was what felt like an honor. This exhibit is up until April 10th. If you are in the area, I highly suggest you go see it.

Museum of Contemporary Photography at 40

Controversial Project Viewed at Chicago Gallery

Today I made a trip to Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. While viewing the work, I came across a project by Carson Davis Brown, called Ctrl+ P. Right away that raised a red flag. These images are taken from the internet and printed and stuck on a gallery wall with prices ranging from $175- $3000.

Now  the real concerning thing about this is, is it an infringement of copyright? In the statement explaining the project, it says that these images were taken from the internet and used for this show.....so does that mean that there was no permission granted from the original photographer for Carson Davis Brown to use this work for his own show???

If this is the case, wouldn't this be considered copyright infringement?

Unless the original photographer did not copyright their images.

Now if it turns out that Carson Davis Brown did get permission from the original photographers, it may be nice if he would have acknowledged them.

Controversy #1.

The next controversial thing about this project is the photographs with brand names in them such as

008, 2014
044, 2014
062, 2014
064, 2014

Would Carson Davis Brown need permission from those name brand companies to put these in a show?

Would the original photographers need permission from those name brands to put those images on the internet?

Controversy #2.


This perhaps is the most controversial parts of photography. If you are going to take someone else's work, how are you going to make it your own so that it isn't so much of a copyright infringement?

Below you can view and read more about Carson Davis Brown's project Ctrl+P.

 Ctrl + P Web Page

A Little Bit of Inspiration

As most of you know, I'm currently working on putting together a recipe book of family recipes. As part of this process, it is required that my class and I research photographers that are working (or had worked) on a project that is similar to our own projects.

As I was compiling a list of photographers, I came across a Chicago food photographer named Stephen Hamilton. I was immediately drawn to his work and how similar our techniques are. Hamilton looks as though he is more about the detail of the food that he is photographing than about the surrounding area of the food. This idea is really what I was going for with my recipe book. Because I am creating a recipe book, I want to capture the details of the food, not an entire place setting, (although some may disagree).

Here is the list of photographers that I created and a link to their websites:

1. Stephen Hamilton
     http://stephenhamilton.com/

2. Laurie Proffitt
     http://www.proffittphoto.com/

3. Jason Robert Scott
     http://www.jasonrobertscott.com/

4. Brian Wetzstein
     http://brianwetzstein.com/

5. Scott Payne
     http://scottpayne.com/

TIME: Instagram Photographers to Follow in All 50 States

Social media plays a big role in the communication of just about anything in this generation. Instagram is a very popular social networking site. For those of you who don't know what Instagram is, it is "an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr. (Wikipedia)."

I recently came across this TIME article titled Instagram Photographers to Follow in All 50 States. It is an interactive map of the United States. When you hover over a state, it gives you the Instagram name of the photographer from that state; if you scroll down past the map, the same photographers are listed alphabetically by state with a description of what they photograph.

I highly encourage you to check out this article, even if you do not have an Instagram. (Their teaser images are enough to make you want to see more!)

9 Ways to Improve Your Photography Over The Winter

Hey everyone!

I have a new article for you all to read today. Author of the article, Jamie Davis Smith, gives us a list of nine ways we can all improve our photography. She even provides examples of online courses we could take from a website called CreativeLive. Well, don't just sit there, check out the article for yourself!

9 Ways to Improve Your Photography Over The Winter

Project Announcement

I'm very excited to announce that for the duration of these next sixteen (16) weeks, I will be working on compiling family recipes into a hard cover cookbook. I will be photographing each dish as a finished project to go along side the recipe. I believe that this will be a very enjoyable project to work on, as well as challenging. I do not claim to be a food photographer, so the fact that I will be photographing food is new. That is all I have right now as it is in the early stages of development. I will keep you all posted, and thank you for reading every week. You guys are the best!

What is your springboard?

So as part of my extended project class, we have to have a blog. Since I already have this one, my posts for class will also be on here.

My topic for the first post is "What is your springboard"?

By definition, a springboard is "a strong, flexible  board from which someone can jump in order to gain added impetus when performing a dive or gymnastic movement; a thing that lends impetus or assistance to a particular action, enterprise, or development."

So what is my springboard?

This image is my springboard. When I take photographs, I want to make something that I can be proud of. This photograph is one of the few photos I have taken, where in the end I can look back at it time and time again and still be proud of how it turned out. An idea is not my springboard, but a feeling. The feeling of accomplishment and pride when you create something that you fall in love with.

What is your springboard?

Making Promotional Pieces That Stand Out

About two weeks ago, I posted about the January PDN issue. I stressed how important promotional pieces are in gaining and keeping clients as well as how to get your name out there. Well this week's post is about how to make your promotional pieces stand out. Author, David Walker provides 6 examples of outstanding promotional pieces and why they are considered to be outstanding. The article is very informative and inspirational. Check it out for yourself:

Making Promotional Pieces That Stand Out

Joy

Tonight I went to go see the new movie, Joy.

This movie featuring Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, & Robert De Niro, is based on the true story of the woman who invented the Miracle Mop. I found this movie to be extremely inspirational. A woman trying to create a business and make a name for herself, is screwed over time and time again by her family and her manufacturers. Joy ends up coming out on top, obviously.

Now, you're probably thinking: Why is this woman doing a movie review on a photography blog?

Your answer is this:

I could personally relate to this movie, as I am trying to create a business of my own. My invention is my photographs that I create with my camera, while Joy's was a mop. However, this movie was motivational and inspiring. I walked away from this movie with a clearer understanding of the frustration it can be to create a business; however I also took away that you should never give in to your frustration and that if you really want something, you should chase after it.

That's what I'm going to do with this business...

I'm going to chase it.

PDN January 2016 Issue

Happy New Year!

We are five (5) days into the new year and everything is going rather well. Hopefully it is going just as well for everyone else.

Recently PDN published their first issue of 2016 and I believe it is a rather important one. This issue is all about marketing & branding, two of the most important things for a photographer to do to promote their work and create a career. This issue is full of advice on raising funds for photo projects and creating promotional pieces that have an impact, as well as designing effective branding.

I definitely believe that this issue is one that every aspiring photographer should pick up and read.

PDN January 2016: The Marketing & Branding Issue