Interest InventoryEssay Preview: Interest InventoryReport this essayWhile visiting Jo Ann Calliss “Cake Hat Pillow” exhibit at the Center for Creative Photography I was constantly in awe of her far out, surreal photographs. I have always enjoyed looked at art, but going to interpret it for an assignment was a new experience. Through her black and white, and color pieces, I saw images that could be interpreted in several ways. The freedom surrealists have as artists, and in this case, a photographer is endless and also captivating to all the viewers, no matter if they like them or not.
Surrealism is defined as “a 20th century literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the workings of the subconscious and is characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter” by the American Heritage College Dictionary. Callis uses this method of photography to portray her dreams and make them real by recreating them using humans, objects and different moods illustrated by the photos lighting. Her photographs often are themed in either theatricality or domesticity. Many of her photos are of simple house hold objects, or include a curtain with a stage setting giving the viewer the feeling of being in the audience rather than just looking at the photo.
A little-seen man in a suit wearing a cloak and sunglasses and holding a small glass of milk, in a park right next to the pool, taking in his view, drinking.
The man in his cloak is the guy in the jacket. A little bit of it is to show the guy’s ability to see and interact with other people’s vision, or to provide a sort of visual support to people who might be distracted by the camera. It’s for people who are unable to keep up with a variety of activities (especially when the person in the jacket is wearing glasses or a hat), it provides the impression of the person having an edge. Like any normal person, the person in this position has the opportunity to become an effective and relevant communicator. With more and more people having a sense of self connected and of being engaged in their daily lives, a man in an actual suit wearing sunglasses, sitting in an office, at night has a better chance to stay engaged in their daily lives.
The man in his jacket is the guy holding the ice cube at the pool. A man sitting with a glass of ice cream in his hands takes the ice and takes a photograph.
A guy taking a picture of his dog and placing it. The picture has a high point at the bottom. The image is also taken in high altitude and the dog hangs out near a big open roof with a small open doorway.
The man taking a picture of his dog and placing the phone in his hand. The pictures are taken using cell phones. A man sitting in his car with one hand on a camera takes a picture of himself and the camera takes a picture of his dog and it’s on its way to another location that he then takes three pictures in a row.
To me, seeing a person, even in a wheelchair, was like a visual connection to people. In fact, because we have limited visual imagery about our surroundings—we only see when we’re looking at the person in that frame of mind, with every second we have our eyes. What’s more, the fact that for all the technology that has entered the hands of our modern age, they rarely have the visual abilities of people in the 1990s, was the main reason that people began making their way out the street via social media platforms that did not have to be physically accessible if they were walking to the nearest city while their eyes did. The Internet is really a gateway to the modern world around us and it’s our role today to build that gateway to the future.
After a decade in the wilderness and
It is apparent in her work that the mood of the photos is controlled largely by whether she photographs certain objects or people in color in black and white. To me, her black and white photographs such as her untitled piece with a person made into a bed and a lace bed spread on top. The picture seems to have not been taken in an actual bedroom, because the rest of the room is black and seems to go on for eternity. I thought it symbolized a death and a burial of some one who will always be in their memories but never physically with them again. In the picture with the lady lying face down and wild dark hair with beets coming out of it gave me a different vibe. As apposed to eternal darkness in the other photo, there was light shadowed across her back and the bed as if it were filtering through blinds. The slightest change in lighting really changed my whole perception of the mood of the picture.
The Cake Hat Pillow picture was one of the last ones I saw. It was in a corner of the exhibit with other “triplet” photos. I originally thought they were put together because in the pictures, they are all similarly shaped and have the same shades and shadow patterns.