Midway Crit Response

After I left critique on Thursday I felt pretty bad. I felt like I didn't do a good job at explaining how I felt about my work and the processes that I used. I had a little script running in my head about what I was going to say and it just fell flat to me. So I was surprised that after watching my tape that it didn't go as badly as I thought. I think that I need to do a better job at speaking clearly and loudly. However, I know that just with how I talk everyday. The most upsetting part about the critique for me was the timing. I was upset that we didn't meet earlier and then I could have more time to work on all the great suggestions that came up in my critique. I think that was what was bothering me the most after I left on Thursday.

After watching the tape and taking notes on what everyone said made me feel confident that my work can grow in a great way. I think that they experiments with location and objects etc that I showed in my crit was the right thing to do. It allowed me to talk about all the things I needed feedback from. (I showed a little bit of all the different places I shot images and props/characters I used these past weeks.) Surprisingly the images that everyone agreed was their favorite was the one I liked least. I think that is great information from my audience and what I need to do to change my work. This image is the one of the characters set up outside. They liked the fact that it looks "real" and not staged like all the rest of my photographs. I loved all the suggestions and comments that people said for me. Also after I was done critiquing, the tape ran a little bit longer and I heard people still talking about other suggestions for my work as I was taking my work down. I liked the idea that people were still able to talk about it even after I was done presenting.

These are some suggestions that people said:

• enlarge the cast of characters
• shoot more outdoor photos
• rewrite my artist statement to be less forceful and blunt
• use a lot more objects with each character
• put a personal point-of-view into my work, make it accessible to others but relating to myself
• title my works
• I need to eliminate the amount of "things" and references in my work. Its too busy and needs to be streamlined so the viewer doesn't feel overwhelmed

All of these suggestions were great ones! I was very inspired to try and create much more work after all of these ideas were floating around the room. There are many things that I think can make the work carry over into next year and change in ways that I didn't expect. Shannon's suggestion of making the work more personal wasn't really a consideration to me before. I am having a hard time thinking about it but I think its good to consider this idea that I hadn't before. I am glad people talked about my artist statement because I need to learn how to less blunt with my writing and with life. I like the idea of using more objects or really bizarre objects I'm just worried I might get too caught up in photoshop and lose focus of actually shooting finished photographs. I think orginially there wasn't enough things to inform viewers in my work and now there is too much going on in my photographs. I need to find a nice balance. I'm excited to go on and make more work.

Photo that everyone liked:

Me in Grass, 20'x30', digital C-print, 2010