Going through essentially the same routine every day, the days have all started to blend together. As the days become the same, I’ve found myself having the same recurring thoughts. The coronavirus doesn’t seem to be slowing down soon, and the only thing we can really do to slow it down is nothing. This has made me think a lot about the lack of control we have as individuals and that maybe we are all being driven by some larger force. Adapting to this new stationary lifestyle, has made me feel sort of out of my habitat and stuck as well. I tried to capture these recurring thoughts I’ve been having through these images.

For my Making It Real project I decided to experiment with a few things. My first five images were inspired by Clarence John Laughlin who created creepy images, some of which were double exposures. I wanted to try to create double exposures myself and instead of having the task of both taking new photographs and ones that would work well together, I decided to use my past photographs to create these three double exposures. For the two pictures of the graveyard, I made them black and white in attempt to make them creepier and unsettling.

For the remaining 5 photographs, I took inspiration from Edward Weston who is famous for his abstract pepper photo. So, I wanted to take photographs of objects around my house that seemed abstract and unusual. I made these images black and white to emphasize the contrast in them and make them more abstract.

Through this assignment I chose to make time real. I have spent the last few days looking at and organizing old photos with my mom. In these photos, we came across countless items/objects that we still have in our house today.  I thought it would be funny to remake these old photos in the same location or with the same object as in the photo taken ~20 years ago. A few items to note are: our green leather couch and salmon pillow, the deer statue I used to care for at my grandmothers house, my grandma’s Viking sewing machine that my mom still uses, and the view from my backyard that is strikingly similar to how it has looked my entire life.

One thing is for certain we are NOT as cute as we used to be!

For this project, I took, what I am calling, face to face portraits of my friends. All of these portraits were taken during a FaceTime call, a liminal space between closeness and distance, that to a certain extent, is able to bend reality.

These connections, these portraits are real, but they are also imaginary. They are virtual portraits, not just digitals ones, in which the distance between the camera and the subject is not just a few feet, but thousands of miles. However, at the same time, the image lies in the palm of my hand and is captured in that same palm with a screenshot. How can an image be so close, but also so far away? How can I make a portrait of a friend when I cannot be physically with them? How do I maintain a friendship and a connection?

This human connection via portraiture is what I wanted to make real.

Being back home has made me realize how much of my life and my story is within the house that I live in. Ever since I have been back, I started to feel less like an adult which has felt good. When I am on campus I feel a lot more independent since I am so far from home but when I am back, my parents don’t fail to make me feel like a kid again which isn’t always a bad thing. There is a magic to life when you are a little kid. Nothing feels real and you feel like you have nothing to be afraid of minus the scary staircase you hated. With every broken window there is a story and each of these pictures contribute to hidden stories within my house that shows we were here.

Sometimes you need to build a fort or eat Oreos with milk. A lot of people grow up too fast and overlook the small things that gave them joy when they were younger. I know I did when I tried to fit into my father’s shoes as a kid wishing to grow up quickly.

People often use their imagination to fill in unknown gaps, especially when looking at photos. If the subject of a photo is unclear, viewers use their own imagination and perception to essential “fill in the blanks” of the photograph. The viewer may have to decide what is happening in the photo or what the subject actually is in order to understand the purpose and intention of the artist. For this assignment, I wanted to experiment with focus, composition, and zoom to compose a series of photos that are ambiguous and up for interpretation. I used a telephoto lens around my house and took pictures of everyday objects but attempted to blur the line between real and unreal, making them harder to recognize than typical photographs of such objects. I think some of the most interesting photographs tend to illustrate ambiguity and can cause an uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty in the viewer which leads them to look at the photograph longer. Overall, this series was an experimentation of abstracting common subjects to look unique and ambiguous to both represent what I see in my own imagination/dreams as well as highlight the importance of seeing the world in different ways.

These are photos taken over the course of three days from Friday to Monday with my two co-quarantined friends. They document a mix of directed and undirected photos that narrate the events that took place. I’ve had the privilege of to spend most of my time outside in Maine where quarantine time has allowed space for peculiar places and happenings like my friends emptied out grandparents house, a farm with a porcupine problem and the mud flats of Wolfe’s Neck. I chose the photos here because my friends and the elements and themes within them tie together a narration that jumps from one photo to the next, much like we are ready to head out into any place that holds a new experience always asking ‘where to’. These photos represent the peculiarity of these adventures and the existence of fuller hidden narrative without readily giving up the mystery.

As a kid, my siblings, I used to spent a lot of time playing with each other outside, with no cares in the world. A lot of the images are reiterations of photos of us playing as kids. It is interesting; currently, we’re living in quarantine, so that means that we have a lot of free time. And that free time can be used to “play” and be outside like we used to when we were kids. But now that we have “grown-up,” we tend to stay indoors, focusing all of our time on our phones, laptops, and just doing our own thing. That is not to say that we do not talk or speak to each other, but I do think that technology does make it easier not to enjoy each other’s presence as we used to. However, I could potentially be using technology as an excuse because as you get older, your priorities shift, and you don’t have the luxury to just play with no cares in the world. These photos are flashbacks to a simpler time where we had no worries and could spend our time playing.

While the number of COVID-19 cases increase each day, the precautions to avoid it become more heavily recommended. It is scary to think that anyone can get this from getting take-out to even standing in a place where it has been in the air. Every time someone brings something from the outside in, a heavy wash has to be applied to all of the objects and even the person to make sure the virus has not stuck on to anything. Currently, most people in my community have remained inside unless it is going out to buy essentials. My friends here have not left their homes in weeks. My mom went grocery shopping and when she came back she had to shower and wash everything that she had bought. Then, I wondered what would happen if we could see the virus? 

My photos have mostly brother and a couple with me doing some normal daily activities and they even include objects that we touch on a normal basis. The paint represents the virus and everywhere we go and touch the virus sticks. The normal things that we would not think in the slightest can be taken away or evidently prohibited, like a high-five or scratching your face shows how easily the virus can spread. I wanted to depict an illusion of the reality that we are facing.

As I mentioned during our class, I wanted to think about what stories have been hidden throughout this uncertain time. I live in a community that has a high population of undocumented migrants, and some of my close friends are undocumented themselves or have family members that are undocumented. Although the labor of undocumented migrants has sustained our food system, the media has not spoken much about how this pandemic is impacting migrant workers that help to pick crops. The work these migrants do is essential to keep us all comfortable, yet they will not have access to the monumental federal aid package that will be implemented soon. I wanted to highlight these stories and contradictions.

A theme that comes up throughout my collection is how our hands interact with the world around us. This pandemic has made us constantly think about our hands and what germs and bacteria exists in them. We are not supposed to touch our faces or shake hands, and we must wash our hands constantly and throughly. Our hands are also used for labor, prayer, among other things.