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Mean World Syndrome is when you develop a fear of the world because all that you consume are things that tell you the world is a dangerous and scary place.
Not every morning is the same but most start something like this.
Wake up
Walk the dog
Make coffee
Read






April 20, 2020 Pandemic COVID-19
The consequences of the pandemic sweeping the globe has yet to be fully realized, millions of people are under social distancing orders or are being required to stay home to help slow the spread of the deadly Coronavirus; as a result, we are learning how to adjust to spending more time at home. This has caused a lot of disruption within our societies, and can cause anxiety or fear of what to do with ourselves and the spaces we occupy. To many the home is little more than a box to store the objects that make us instantly happy and offer a short respite from the increasing call to work more and more.
Maybe it is time we start to as a society, demand that we have more free time than work time. This situation we are in has allowed me to explore my ideas of the home and space we occupy and what it means to find happiness. One thing that connects humans is our ability to empathize with others; one method that can facilitate this is photography, it provides an excellent medium to convey thought or further explore a concept through visual language intertwined with the human experience. Photography is my method and this is my perspective and that is all I can share.

“To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell. The old word bauen, which says that man is insofar as he dwells, this word bauen however also means at the same time to cherish and protect, to care for, specifically to till the soil, to cultivate the vine. Such building only takes care – it tends the growth that ripens into its fruit of its own accord.”
Martin Heidegger
There is an incredibly grounding effect that takes place when I am working on the tiny garden that we have on our back porch.

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” – Marcus Aurelius

“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”
Wendell Berry

“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”
Carl Sagan

“There is no detail in photography there’s only focus because, once, there is a focal plain… everything in it, is sharp, therefore whats the detail? There is no detail.”
Jeff Wall
Photographs have yet to provide exact truth as I have learned, I feel strongly that by embracing the artifice of the object of the photograph we can explore ideas that result from simple electrical impulse in the human brain. Sometimes when viewing another artists work I get this sort of fuzzy energetic feeling in my brain that I really can’t describe, this is what I push for in my work.

04/07/2020 We looked at and discussed Sarah Charlesworth’s work titled Stills. The quality of the images reminded me of the Xerox books that were produced within the Conceptual realm of art in the late 60’s. Later in the day Monday for Studio lighting class we did a still life demonstration. It was difficult at first with the new format of class via internet but it worked out. I ended up grabbing a dried bunch of leaves to photograph. After editing I though why not mix it up! So I made a few nice 8.5×11 prints and decided to make a photocopy and then scan the photocopy and see what happens to the image making sure to keep all the flaws.


The Portrait
I chose to pursue deadpan portraiture for my portrait project spring 2020 at CSUS. Through Bernd and Hilla Bechers’ adherence to a strict set of rules in documenting the industrial world their work evolved beyond simply documentary purposes and crossed the threshold into conceptual artistic practice despite their insistence that what they were doing was not art or made for artistic purposes; Bechers’ work provided inspiration into the nature of deadpan portraiture. Part of my drive to photograph has come from wanting to understand more how we communicate; this has been a major part of what I have struggled with in my work. I keep coming back to the idea that no matter how hard we try to gain a common understanding of literally anything in the conceivable or even inconceivable universe there will always be a disconnect between individuals and what is agreed upon as ‘truth’. Keeping this in mind After viewing a room of deadpan portraits I couldn’t really understand why a picture of someone with the intent to show no emotion could cause a great stir of response within myself. Only after stumbling across a TEDtalk on Youtube that explained how humans evolved to use common types of expression to indicate friend or foe and that it still is something that lives within us today that I started to see why deadpan portraiture can be so powerful. I did some research into the area of deadpan aesthetics and as with anything I have tried didn’t accomplish exactly what has been done before. This is because I am not trying to exactly copy the work that precedes me, but, to add to the historical body of work that has already been done. I used a set of rules that I developed myself. I have reasoning for every aspect of what is in the frame, I chose to use a black backdrop because I am not attempting to simply document but straddle objectivity and subjectivity the plain expressions for objective purposes and the black background to demonstrate the depth of the human experience and how we really can’t see or understand fully what that is. I also chose to develop the photographs in black and white as well as color; this is because the camera sensor initially records the image in black and white and through complex algorithms translates the data into a color image. Do you sense any emotion in any of these photographs? If so, thinks about what you may be projecting onto the photograph with your own feelings and experiences. Share in the comments below your reaction to these photographs!
The Rules

























