Art 418/518 Advanced/Graduate Photo Fall 2020: Assignment 1: Conceptual Contrast

Art 318/418/518/618

A useful, and sometimes amusing, strategy when working conceptually can be to contrast two or more ideas within the same photograph.

For example, how can a photograph simultaneously communicate the ideas: "danger" and "safety", or "freedom" and "trapped", or "fast" and "slow."

This can be called: conceptual contrast. Graphically, we talk about the contrast between lights and darks, or between warm and cool colors, but what about the contrast between ideas?

Perhaps the subject and the background point to different "truths," realities, or backstories that complicate the whole picture.... maybe in contradictory, ironic or challenging ways. Sometimes the contrast can even be found between multiple subjects while the background simply functions as a neutral stage.

How does conceptual contrast play through the images below?

Are opposites suggested? Or is a "simple truth" made more complex or nuanced ?

Assignment: Create 10-20 well thought-out images that employ some form of conceptual contrast. Find, stage, or otherwise create subject matter/background for your pictures, placing all elements within a single frame, in-camera (no photoshop).

DUE: Shoot RAW, process into JPEG and upload to dropbox by class, Wednesday 8/26.