Above are the two photos I showed in the critique. My own explaination for the top one is relationship with boyfriend, 2nd one is about loneliness, boredom, mimic murder scene, life is more horrible than murder.

Feedback:
Metaphor.
Les Krims 1972, Stack O’Wheat Murders, fake crime scene photos. I don’t like them, I don’t get it.
Murder or Death?
Presentation: white paint on frames(great idea, might try), white masonite panel (i don’t think this works), plexi or aluminum(going to), refer to Ian Lemmonds. My comprimised result is floating frame.
bigger scale
What is worse than murder? Are you saying murder is common in pop culture? NO
read Howard Zin, historian. Democracy and Disobedience. How do we accept when there is so much disorder in the world.
Are you talking about victim or killer?
Do we honor the victim? Are you sympathetic? Are you apathy?
Wahol’s car crash
“Death of Marat” This leads to my new picture.

commented on dustpan and shoes color
why pinching nipple? Like a game
An extension of shutter.
Does shock transfer to pleasure?
a metaphor for psychological annulation.
Why is he wearing a wig?
sexual ambiguity. Why do we have 2 genders? Why do we have another gender?
do you write? no. but I draw storyboard for 60% of my photos. interested in film
exasperation, exhaustion, a terrible conversation.
don’t look like murder. Towel was blood.
theatric
have you been looking at crime scene photos? yes
go to rotten.com. I did, uh~~~~~
Damian Hirst love it.
write ideas so they are less elusive
present more than one photo- perhaps 70 would be a good number.
roles of sex, roles of power.
and thats the first critique I’ve ever ended with the word hermaphrodite.

I’ve been shooting with film since I started learning photography officially. Before that I was using crappy digital cameras. I’m always happy about the color & dynamic range of color negatives & I don’t think I’ve seen any digital photos look as good as film. But I’m going to do my thesis & my teacher Larry suggested me switch to digital. A canon 40D is what he recommended & I can afford. He said I can get better result shooting with a good digital camera & doing the right way. He’s going to teach me how to do it in digital. He switched to digital about 2 years ago, & he totally believed in digital now.
I know if I work in digital, it will be way more efficient & practical in the future. & maybe I’ll be forced into digital anyway cause the school’s color machine is dying.

My problem with dslrs is I don’t trust them. I have a Nikon D70 & the quality is so poor that I rarely use it. Although people have been telling me digital is good but I haven’t seen any digital photos that have the quality of film. & I searched the camera, it’s 3888 x 2592 pixels. If I output it at 254 p/i, the size is only 10″x15″. Right now I’m using 6×4.5 & 4×5, although the largest size I can print with enlarger is 16″x20″. I even like the scanning files better than the RAW files.

So if you know about digital, show me some real good examples of digital photos. I really love the color of ANNIE LEIBOVITZ. Those colors look so dense that it almost feels like dripping, creamy & greasy. Yummy!

I think she used digital in her latest work which the color is not so good anymore (but still better than other photographers).

Maybe I just have a very perticular taste for color or I haven’t seen the real good digital photos.

昨晚带着小黑去参加了CLASS OF ‘07（正好他PHOTO TRIP到MEMPHIS，得以相见，很好的人呢）。今年的Class of ‘07比去年的要办的大，有本地近40个艺术家参展。他们找到了一处空关着的办公室改造成了gallery。作品有的放在几间小房间里，有的放在很窄的走廊里，大件的放在后面仓库里。人很多，里面也很热。
I went to Class of ‘07 with Jigeng last night (He visited Memphis during his photo trip. We finally meet, he’s really nice guy). This year show is much bigger than last one. Almost 40 local artists are in the show. They found an empty office space & changed it into gallery. Some works are placed in different small rooms, some are in the hall way. Big pieces are in the back garage place. Lot’s of people, & heat.

我这次展了一张和MORO的合照。上次说到我想用PLEXI GLASS，但是限于时间和成本就放弃了。后来我在MICHAEL’s找到这个16×20的floating frame。还算比较好的达到了我要的目的，就是把照片浮在墙上，但是有个黑框怎么都是阴影啊，白框应该要好些，可惜没有。
Mine is a photo of Moro & I, called “Choking Game”. Last time I talked about using Plexi glass. But I gave up due to the time & cost. I found a 16×20 floating frame at Michael’s. It’s a pretty good comprimise. It does float my picture. But I still don’t like the black frame, looks so dark. I wish it were white, but they don’t have white ones.

Lantana Project注的说明比较有趣。“廖的‘窒息游戏’颜色令人惊奇的中立（靠近中灰色）；照片中的人物正在玩一种私密（也或许是性）的求爱游戏。他们半穿着衣服，又或许我们应该看成是半裸，要看进行程度决定了。女主角正在咬她的男伴的下半嘴唇，她的手又紧握着他的喉咙，表现了暗示性的性侵略。”
Lantana’s fun take:

很荣幸和我一个老师Greely Myatt的作品放在一个房间里，他的这个作品是我这次最喜欢的，特别适合闷热的空间。
I’m very honored to be in the same room as my teacher, Greely Myatt. His piece is my favorite one in this show, called “The Blind Leading the Blind”. So properite for the heat.

另外一幅我很喜欢的作品。Nick Pena的Red Inter-ior。Another favorite piece.

I don’t know her. But since I saw her photos in “American PHOTO On Campus” magazine, I cannot forget about them. So I came back & looked for her photos. There’re definitely some similarities between her work & mine.

“Situating myself as an object in carefully constructed settings, I try to capture moments of emotional crisis and social disconnection in everyday life. A combination of contradictory emotions—uprightness and vulnerability, humor and tragedy—often inhabit my work.”

I can totally feel her feelings (at least I think) when she’s making the photos. The feeling of “I have to make this idea of image happen. It will look so nice.” That’s what I feel when I’m taking my good photos.

I also see the similarity thru the rigid pose of these pictures, a feeling of formality(拘谨). We both came from Asia, out of a graphic design background.

I love her choice of color but somehow I feel the final images look a little dirty. She has a strong sense of certain fashion. & her images are darker than mine. They remind me of Korean horror movies.

She probably graduated from University of Pennsylvania in 2007. There’s really not so much about her online. I hope she’s still in US & maybe we can be friends.

The Class of ‘07: The Best Artwork of the Year
Saturday, November 17
7:00 - 10:00 pm
574 South Main
$5 entry
 
Featured Artists:
Lea Alexander * Elizabeth Alley * Susan Best * Sarah Boyce * Dwayne Butcher
Paul Clements * Holly  Davis  * Hamlett Dobbins * Melissa Dunn * Melinda Eckley
Melissa Farris * Annette Fournet * Michael Force * Brooke Foy * Richard Gamble
Ashley Gerst * Elisha Gold * Pinkney Herbert * Jed Jackson * Niki Johnson
Tim Kinard * Yijun Liao * Nancy May * Erica McCarrens * Carol Harding McTyre
Carl Moore * Sunny Montgomery * Greely Myatt * Elizabeth Owen * Catherine Blackwell Pena
Nick Pena * Joel Rose * Vitus Shell * Rumi Tominaga * Ben Utigard * Ryan VanderLey
Billy Welch * Steven Troy Williams * Tad Lauritzen Wright
 
Entertainment by DJs the Defective Agency and Mind at Large

Thanks to Lantana Project, I’m in the show again. I were in their Class of ‘06 last year, that was the first show in my life. Til now I have been in four shows, 3/4 of them are related to Lantana’s curator Ian Lemonds. In China, we will call him “Bo Le”, a guy that finds good horses. I try to be a good one.

So come support me if you can. They will have a vote for the “Most Popular” member of the class this year. Every attendee will get one ballot, and the top 3 winners will each receive:Two tickets to RENT at the Orpheum Theatre
A $75 gift certificate to the Art Center
A CD from Goner Records
A Lantana tee shirt

 I don’t need much, one tee shirt is good enough.

Taking one’s creation too seriously

Some books, movies, and other literary works end up being unintentionally funny because they are comically clichéd or overwrought, despite appearing to be earnest and serious efforts by their creators. Examples are “so bad they’re good” movies and the style of bad writing celebrated by the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

from wikipedia

thoughts about my deadpan pictures.

Everytime before the show, I need to worry about the presentation. To me, mounting & framing & all that photo finishing stuff is a whole new world. They use a completely different terminology that I can hardly understand.

Last time I had my prints mounted on Sintra board & put frame on the back of the board(called floater). The result looks pretty good, my photo just floated on the wall. However, I’m not satisfied with durability of it. At the same time I want sth glossy on top of it. So I checked online finally I found this. So if possible I’d like to have my print face mounted to plexiglass & back mouted to sintra board & then put the floater on the back of it. If that’s workable, & affordable, I’d like to do it this time. Hope my local lab can do it.

Another option is like the one I saw in Alec Soth’s show.

Probably the same thing here:

I think it is like print back mounted to Sintra board (or others) & then put into a shadow box. I went to Michael’s & looked for shadow boxes, but none of them look good. I want the shadow box be very shallow, simple, white. They all kind look too “crafty”, sometimes even with a stupid lock on it. I don’t know if I can find a more contemporary smart looking shadow box or those are specially made frame or what.

 Wait! I found this. Exactly what I want! But it is in Europe. Where can I do this in US?

So, I tried MPI, they cannot do it. Bennett said it’s too risky, he no longer does that. Chase, help!

Places I found online, but no time to try this time, maybe next time.
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007plv
http://www.imageimpactinc.com/imageimpactinc/price_frames.asp
http://www.wilcovak.nl/uk/index.htm
http://www.fourblankwalls.co.uk/index.html
http://shop.sentiam.com/