Hofmauer 2006

One of my assignments this week was to photograph a response to Martina Sauter's Hofmauer. I had to go all the way to Ballard to visit a gallery where the piece was exhibited. I hadn't done any research on the artist before going, so I had no expectations, and when I got there I couldn't believe I'd taken 2 hours off my busy day to go see *that*. I really didn't care for it. More than anything, I was angry at the waste of time.

Below is Sauter's image (real size is 39" x 53"). What was even more daunting was that I had to photograph a response to something that I found obscure and uninspiring. That, and I had no time because of work, a big release this week (was in the office until 3 am two nights this week) and prepping for my biz trip in London. Anyway, I did "my best", given what I had. Second image is my response. You have to click to enlarge and really see what's going on. It turns out that the original image is a composite of Martina's backyard and Hitchcock's footage. I took a similar approach - photographed several brick buildings right outside the gallery and found an image from Rear Window (love that movie!), which I cropped and put in the middle. I purposefully didn't line up the bricks to point to the same vanishing point - I wanted the whole thing to look awkward because I think her work looks awkward and I really was quite angry at this assignment.

BTW, I decided to use a panorama format (4:1 ratio) because that's what I need to shoot for my other class (for the bus shelters public art). It's a pretty challenging format to work in, so I wanted to get some practice. FWIW, this image is suited for a panorama format.