Amy Stein artist lecture

I went into this lecture with a positive outlook on things, since I really enjoyed the last lecture I attended.  I was initially very impressed to hear about the awards and other titles she has gained through her photography.  

When Stein began explaining how she got into photography, I lost a lot of respect for her.  She came into photography because she could no longer do what she really wanted to do, which was something with politics and the internet.  She made it seem like anybody could be a photographer, and that really offends me.  I've known that I have wanted to be a photographer for about four years now, and it's my passion, not what I'm gonna do when nothing else works out.  The latter is what I feel Stein expressed.  I'm not saying that her photography is bad, some of her photos were actually quite pleasant and interesting to look at.  It is the fact the she expressed that she is a random and late bloomer to photography that really threw me off and gave me a negative bias on the rest of her presentation.

In her series "domesticated," I was initially interested in the concept of humans and nature combining and clashing.  I then came to realize that all of her photographs were based off of stories from the people in the town.  I don't find that creative at all.  I didn't see the artist in the work, I saw the story.  I feel as if she's one of the top fifteen emerging photographers in the world, then she should be able to add a little bit more creativity to her work rather than just the literal interpretation of a story that's not her own.  I felt it was very unnecessary and repetitive to tell us every single story of every image as they came on the screen.  Her work cannot stand without some kind of explanation, which is good for a book with text, but not a gallery, or a presentation.

I found the idea of her "stranded" series very interesting, and I would, someday, love to be able to approach random people and take their photographs as she did.  I don't feel as if it is the safest method to find random people, but obviously it worked out for her. I found some of the photos from this series interesting, such as the shots of the children, yet I felt as if some of them were repetitive.  Car, road, person.  I would appreciate some weird angles or a higher or lower perspective to change up the very constant viewpoint.

When the end of the lecture was coming close and questions were being asked, I was very thrown off by one of her responses.  I don't even remember what the question was, but I do remember her responding with an "I don't know" numerous times.  It wasn't a difficult question, and it was directly related to her work.  Not having an explanation for a key point in your work is not a good thing, especially in a presentation to a room full of photography students.

Overall, I personally don't find Amy Stein to be a strong, independent artist.  I see her work as solely depending on the actions of other people.  This is not a good way to live as an artist.  People and things don't always do what you want them to do.  I wish she had more work to show us that would actually show Amy Stein, not a story.