EX137 Mirrors and Windows
John Szarkowski takes Minnor Whites idea and mounts an exhibition. The photographs is a retrospective of the past 20 years of modern photography. From 1957 to 1977. It is exhibited in New York at the MOMA, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Louisvile, San Francisco, Illinois, Virgina and Milwaukee. Half of the show is exhibited on white walls and the other on grey.
The exhibition is divided into two categories, that take the metaphor of Mirrors and Windows.
One is deeply introspective, dream like, and talks about the photographer that took the images.
The other is journalistic, showing us images of how we see the world. One where the photographer tells a truthful story.
One is a mirror of the photographer, the other is where the photographer uses the camera to show us a window out into the world.
John suggests that the two types of photographs extend to either ends of a spectrum.
For more information see previous presentations and the last two book reviews.
For this weeks exercise, I ask you to consider both intents in your work.
Post two photographs in a diptych. They don’t need to be related in any way at all.
Put one that is deeply introspective, and one that is purely a window to the world.
No photographs of mirrors or windows are allowed. It is a metaphor.
Do not tell us which is which. No need to tell us anything about the two images you post. Let us explore and discuss what the images mean to us.
What we want to know, is John onto something important. Does it matter? Can we actually tell the difference?
Please post more than one pair if you wish.
https://lensclub.discussion.community/post/ex137-mirrors-and-windows-12270471?pid=1331865442#post1331865442
We won’t be discussing these in Len’s Class, as we still have one more round of discussion about the work from the January Project left to do.
