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Blog Post #6: Location Sign Archive

During spring break I visited Lockhart which is the BBQ capital of Texas. Lockhart was originally founded on the Chisholm Trail which cowboys used to transfer cattle to sell in the 1800s. It grew significantly in the 1920’s as a boom town with the development of oil fields, bringing many exciting businesses and consumers to central Texas. Walking through downtown Lockhart you can see that the architecture is older, much of it nicely preserved just with modern businesses inside. The town center is surrounded with restaurants, antique shops, and coffee shops. It truly has that small town charm, I feel like it is communicated in these photographs as well. I really enjoyed that you can feel the rich history of Lockhart and can also appreciate the newcomers wanting to make it exciting by bringing businesses with their own touch. The food is a major part of the culture in Lockhart, it’s a necessity to get bar-b-cue and stop to get a treat from a bakery near by. Most of the pictures I chose from my archive are connected to the food scene. There is a bright pink BBQ sign that you can tell is hand painted it could possibly be a newer, female owned business. I did notice a lot of painting signs on bricks, they were typically older as shown in the saloon image. The fonts on the bricks had a mostly similar simple font. Another big part of Lockhart is the vintage shopping, there is a mix between new and old locations. One of my favorite signs was on the side of a vintage store, it was an old furniture store and they still had two of the old logos on the side of the building. I thought it was interesting how you could see so much history off of three signs on one building.

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Compisition Study

Part 1: The Four Square Exercise

Part 2: Artwork Analysis

The artwork I chose for my composition analysis was “The Swing” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. This is one of my favorite paintings, and I believe it does display strong compositional choices made to flatter the subject and convey mischievousness and sensuality from the Rococo Era. Painted in 1767, this painting depicts a young woman in a beautiful, flowing pink gown swinging in the air. Surrounding her is an older gentleman (her husband) behind her pulling the swing back, and on the left side of the painting, you see her younger lover hiding out of sight, admiring her, watching her slipper fly off her foot. This painting is composed in a triangular shape; a ray of light shines down on the woman swinging. The bottom right corner of the triangle would be her husband, and the bottom left is the young lover. This helps tell the story of the painting because your eyes move along that route; you first are drawn to the woman enjoying herself. Then, you are moved along to see what else is happening, displaying the frivolity and indulgence from that era. This painting could also be viewed as an oval as the trees in the background form an oval around the action in the center.  

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“Moonlight” A Color Study: Narrative

“Moonlight” is a 2016 romance and drama film directed by Barry Jenkins; it tells the story of Chiron, a young black man growing up in Miami. The story follows him through his life as he is navigating his sexuality and different struggles as he becomes an adult. This film uses color to beautifully convey the narrative and different themes of vulnerability, strength and Chiron trying to find his personal identity.

This story is told in three parts starting when he is young, his adolescence, to him becoming an adult; each chapter being a name he was called at one point in his life. The first part is titled “Little” which is a nickname people used to call Chiron seeing as he was skinny and with a smaller build. According to Indiewire.com the cinematographer James Laxton and the director worked together to give each chapter of the film a different film stock look. During the story of Little the film was manipulated to look like Fiji film stock which typically gives film a warmer look; highlighting textures in skin tone. The director pushed contrast a lot in this film and also used a single light source in almost all the shots to create a real sense of the sun beaming down on the characters. In the first chapter you notice a lot of blue surrounding Chiron, his backpack, when he is sleeping, driving in the car, etc. Providing a sense of calmness and hinting towards Chiron on the path to his true self. A prominent scene in the movie that is bathed in blue lighting is when Juan says “Can’t let nobody make that decision for you” regarding Chiron deciding who he wants to be in life.

The next chapter titled “Chiron” you notice more red lighting and red accent colors in the background. The film stock they chose to replicate in this act was old Agfa film stock, it is known for adding cyan to image highlights giving scenes a distinct green-ish blue hue. Moving on to the use of red as a narrative tool: there are two “copy cat” scenes with Chiron’s mother yelling at him in red lighting. The first scene is played in slow motion and she says “you are a faggot” and the second scene at regular speed later in the movie she says “don’t look at me”. I also noticed throughout the movies when someone is bullying Chiron or bringing about stereotypes they are bathed in red. In one of the first scenes in the movie he is being chased by a child with a red backpack and in the second part a major scene is when his bully is wearing a bright red shirt.

In the third act of the movie they used a modified Kodak stock, which is said to be “less restrictive”and provided more pop and shine. As seen on the movie poster, so far the first act is marked by blue, the second by red, and the third act the color fades together and blurs as he gets older turning to black. Coincidentally, the third act is titled “Black” which is a nickname given to him by his friend Kevin which is the only man he ever touched and ever let touch him. One of the final scenes of the movie is Chiron leaning his head on Kevins shoulder, the colors of their shirts fading together to black to show Chiron finally becoming comfortable with his sexuality.

https://ourculturemag.com/2020/07/04/11-incredible-stills-from-moonlight-2016/

https://www.indiewire.com/awards/industry/moonlight-cinematography-color-barry-jenkins-james-laxton-alex-bickel-1201740402/

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The film, “Zoopraxographer” by Thom Anderson explores Eadweard Muybridge and his contributions to photography and motion-study. This was very interesting to watch because I remember in high school briefly looking at his work in one of my elective classes to show how he was a stepping stone in the photography and film world. I appreciate the archive shown in this film, especially the way multiple images were shown many times to show the different varieties that were in Muybridges work. It was mentioned in the video that Muybridge did not have much to do with cinematography, but I think the motion-pictures he created were like a video of the person rather than individual images.

To continue, I can see both sides of how Muybridges work can be interpreted. The first being scientific since his work dealt with observing movements and activities of animals. Then to the more creative and artistic side, he has humans and animals together doing many different things. I enjoyed seeing the range of his work, he liked a lot of nude models to be observational. I enjoyed when the film explored his costumed works to commemorate the current era by the clothes. This film definitely expanded my understanding of the history of photography and what came before the simplicity of what we have now.

#txst

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Photography

When thinking of photography my mind goes to family pictures, selfies, screenshots, and photos of everyday life. Reading this short text from Susan Sontag made me realize how deep photography actually is and its many uses in the world. She mentioned how photographs can be miniature pieces of reality. Yet, a photographer can choose what reality they are capturing by the angles, subject, cropping, and editing of the image. I think it is interesting to observe through Sontags writing how the use of photography has evolved and expanded.

She mentions how cameras are now thin and can fit in your pocket, everyone has a camera with them at all times these days. So this aspect definitely changes our connection to photographs in the 2020s. On one hand there is the light-hearted, creative, artistic side of photography; I personally have an instagram account purely dedicated to photos I took or saw online that I think are cool. Then especially in our political climate today there is a very serious, journalistic, and historic side of photographs. One part of the text I found very interesting was on pages 11-12 when she is discussing photography being an event in itself. Particularly an event in which someone’s life is at stake, she writes, “in situations where the photographer has the choice between a photograph and a life, to choose the photograph. The person who intervenes cannot record; the person who is recording cannot intervene.” This just made me think of the war between Palestine and Israel, in my personal adult life this is the first time I have seen a war documented that I have been a witness through online. Reading that quote above made me think of all the images I have seen online from this conflict and what choice the photographer made when shooting these images.

These are just some quotes from the text that really stood out to me that I wanted to include:

- “People might learn to act out more of their aggressions with cameras and fewer with guns, with the price being an even more image-choked world.”

- “Because nature has ceased to be what it always had been—what people needed protection from. Now nature—tamed, endangered, mortal— needs to be protected from people. When we are afraid, we shoot. But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures.”

- “The sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by photographs feeds directly into the erotic feelings of those for whom desirability is enhanced by distance.”

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HyperNormalisation

The documentary “Hypernormalisation” by Adam Curtis tells the story of two cities at the same time who had ideas of the possibility to a world without politics. It explores the political climate in New York City and Damascus in the 1970’s and what role these cities played in creating our current reality. This film discusses how in the past 40 years politicians, bankers, and people in power constructed a false reality and explores certain forces that are piercing through the fake world to take back power.

I genuinely enjoyed the film, the content, and the way it was presented with archives really helped with understanding. The archive was used in a story telling aspect which added depth to the history presented. There was a vast variety of archives used - ranging from movies, interviews, home videos and more. This documentary was great for me to explore archives and the diverse ways they can be used and even what an archive can be considered as. One thing I did find interesting about the video is that some of the clips are very choppy and seem to freeze or cut frames, I wonder if this was done on purpose to remind you that you are watching archives or to bring you back to reality for a second. I liked when the archives were presented, and we got to hear the people from this time and places speak and interact with one another especially in the harsh political climate at the time. It was great to see the different sides and priorities people took during this era such as people who took LSD to reach a “new, better” reality. As far as Curtis’s approach, the narration combined with the archives and the style of editing really helped with understanding the seriousness of this time and how rapidly things can change in our world. I also liked how at certain points the narration would cut off so we could listen to the clip provided, giving us more insight on the topic.

To close out, this film made me feel conflicted and a little infuriated because it seems the same issues that they dealt with over 40 years ago have not progressed. History seems to be on this endless loop with new and more complex problems. I like what the archives brought to this film; it created an artistic touch. I think its amazing that we have endless archives about almost anything you can think of, and that they can be used in so many ways. I am personally excited to explore more archives and hopefully use them in my own art.

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©beamingdesign

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BMW TURBO

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IG : @ eduziggy

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Chloé Jafé, Inochi Azukemasu (I give you my life), 2017

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TLC on the set of “No Scrubs” (1999)

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I never regret what I did, if I did it, it was the right thing to do at the time….

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IG : @ esquivestudio