Date attended: October 6
On this particular day I was not planning on attending any workshops, but my friend Rolra convinced me to go, and to my benefit the workshop was really short so I didn’t mind going. The tour guide showed us several photographs (I was actually surprised because I was expecting to see paintings), among which I only remember two photos distinctly.
One of the photos showed two men on a boat. I remember this particular photo because our tour guide discussed the the aspect of movement that the photographer was trying to portray. The things that showed motion in the photo was one man pouring water out of a bucket, ripples in the water, and the other man standing on one foot trying to maintain his balance because the boat was most likely rocking back and forth. Our tour guide also mentioned that only part of the boat was photographed, and not the whole (which didn’t seem significant to me at first); the photographer’s intention in doing this was to create the effect of bringing viewers inside the photo, to make them feel like they were a part of it. It suddenly occurred to me that a lot of thought goes into creating a masterpiece that clearly depicts the intentions of the photographer (or any artist for the matter), so that it has the effect that he/she is trying to achieve.
The other photo that serves my memory well is one that looked like a landscape. The black-and-white photo was serene, and looked like hills. However, once I got up close, I realized that these hills were actually men laying on their stomachs, stationed side-by-side diagonally, creating the illusion of a landscape. The hills were created by the curves of the men, especially by their butts (sorry if this sounds vulgar). What I thought was nothing more than a boring landscape photo suddenly became interesting to me, and captured my attention. I think the photographer was really clever in creating this photo, deceiving viewers and forcing them to do a double-take and to take a closer look before they judge a work of art to be boring.
It just goes to show that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, or in this case, a photo at first glance.