paul shambroom artist lecture

Since I was not too thrilled with the turnout of the last artist lecture I attended, I was a little nervous coming to see Paul speak. I found his ideas interesting, yet not something I would ever be interested in capturing myself. They seemed like such huge ideas and I feel like it could be interpreted or shown visually in many ways.

I did really enjoy viewing his work. Every time he would show something new, I thought, wow this is definitely my favorite part of his work. But that kept changing as he showed us more if his projects. I just couldn’t pick one that I liked the best. Now that I’ve thought about it for a few days, I believe that I enjoyed his pictures of the corporate office spaces, as he showed cut off objects and sections of things that one would not usually focus on. This somewhat abstract style is very intriguing to me.

The pictures of the small town city council meetings made a huge impact on me. I added a photo of one of the meetings on this blog. Shambroom’s work, and his note about being influenced by Cartier Bresson, has actually influenced me to do something similar for my film photography class. The idea of working with people but not telling them what to do, yet capturing them exactly as they are and off guard as well is very interesting to me and I will be experimenting with this concept for the rest of the semester. I like the idea of photographing someone when they are off in their own little world.

I particularly enjoyed the fact that Paul Shambroom didn’t just come in and say something like, “here’s my stuff, and this is why I did it.” He included the audience into his discussion. I feel like I learned a lot about actually being a photographer by hearing him speak. He discussed the problem of getting access in certain places, and how we should deal with these things. He also asked if we were all photographers, and I feel as if that put him and the audience on a more understanding level.

Overall, I really enjoyed listening to Shambroom speak and show his photographs. I feel as if he is a man with big ideas and knows all the little secrets to get what he wants. I will definitely be using his work as an influence for my own personal work.

alix pearlstein artist lecture

Alix's lecture was the first artist lecture I have attended at VCU, so I didn't really know what to expect.  I believe that she was very well spoken and had some really good base ideas to build her work on.  I am new to the whole aspect of understanding performing art, so I was a bit confused while viewing her work.  I personally thought that it looked quite amateur and I was not wowed or moved.  I think since I am new to this type of art, I don't understand it, thus I do not necessarily like it.  Everything in the videos just seemed too simple compared to her explanation about her work.  I thought that her later work was much better than her earlier work, as it got a little more intricate with the overall scene and camera movements.  One thing that really bugged me though was the fact that you could see the camera people at numerous times during the videos.  I just think that looks bad and it seems more like a mistake than an intended part of the scene.  I believe I need more exposure to this type of art, and then maybe I can appreciate it more.