CHALLENGE #1: Make a Photograph using only 1 Color

© Tina Tyrell

One of the things that I hope to do with this blog is to inspire you to go out and make amazing photographs. Or, if nothing else, to have a little fun! Therefore, I am going to be giving you girls a bunch of Challenges! I'll give you a few guidelines, and then you can go out with your camera (a point-and-shoot digital camera will work just fine) and try to make the best pictures that you can.

Once you have completed the challenge, email me your digital file to thegirlproject@gmail.com, and the top images will be featured on the blog! Send jpegs, 72 dpi, no larger than 5x7 inches. Anyone can complete the challenges, but only those girls who have already returned their TGP camera can be featured on this blog.

So...CHALLENGE #1: Make a photograph using only one color.

Of course, you can use more than one shade of that color. But try to keep it minimal. Subject matter is wide open. Feel free to make a portrait, still life, landscape, whatever.

For inspiration I give you two examples:

1. A recent article in New York Magazine highlighted a bunch of eccentric New Yorkers who choose to wear only one color everyday. You can see some of the pictures above.
   
2. Sophie Calle is an amazing French artist who spent December 8-14, 1997 eating (and photographing) foods of only one color. She did this in reference to the book Leviathan, by Paul Auster, in which he describes his character Maria: "Some weeks she would indulge in what she called 'the chromatic diet,' restricting herself to foods of a single color on any given day." Sophie ate only orange food on Monday, red food on Tuesday, white food on Wednesday, green food on Thursday, yellow food on Friday, pink food on Saturday, and on Sunday she threw a dinner party with 6 guests, who then ate meals of all six colors from Sophie's chromatic diet.

© Sophie Calle

TGP NEWS

I have wonderful news to share. SCOPE Foundation, a supporter of The Girl Project, recently raised several thousand dollars - FOR YOU!!! Money equals cameras and cameras equal photographs... so on and so on.

SCOPE Foundation(501c3) was launched this year by SCOPE International Art Fair, to support contemporary emerging art in cities where the fair is based (Miami, Basel, New York, London, Madrid, Hamptons). In July at SCOPE Hamptons, SCOPE Foundation held its first ever Mentorship Auction which raised money for The Girl Project. THANKS SCOPE! Future opportunities exist for people to participate in the Mentorship Auction at upcoming SCOPE London and SCOPE Miami. NOTE: The Girl Project will be showing at SCOPE Miami!! If you haven't booked a hotel room move fast! SCOPE Miami takes place Dec. 4-7th.

For more information on the Mentorship Auction contact:
hhess@scope-art.com

Michal Chelbin: Strangely Familiar

Alicia in a Golden Dress, Ukraine, 2005 © Michal Chelbin

Israeli artist Michal Chelbin just released her first monograph, Strangely Familiar: Acrobats, Athletes, and Other Traveling Troupes, which is available through Aperture. Her pictures are a mix of portraits of acrobats, ballroom dancers and contortionists from small towns in the Ukraine, Eastern Europe, England, and Israel.

In the book's introduction, Leah Ollman writes that in the photograph above (Alicia in a Golden Dress), “a self-possesed young woman in radiant gold displays her poise in a dancer’s turned-out stance. Like a showpiece, or a pet, she performs on command under the watchful eye of her grizzled father, who stands behind their equally battered car.”

Michal makes portraits of these performers out of context - they are not on stage, but in some other, less dramatic space. This technique allows the viewer to really examine her subjects as individuals, rather than performers. So in the photo above, we get to see Alicia perform for just us, instead of an entire audience.

© Michal Chelbin

In Michal's artist statement she writes, “My aim is to record a scene where there is a mixture of direct information and enigmas and in which there are visual contrasts between young and old, large and small, normal and abnormal. My playground lies between the private and the public, between fiction and documentary."

Two Athletes, Ukraine, 2006 © Michal Chelbin

She continues, "For me, the image is just the tip of the iceberg; it's the gate to a story waiting to be told and which I try to depict in an appealing yet troubling way. This story is about a life full of contradictions on the battle ground between fantasy and reality.”

© Michal Chelbin

Michal was one of the photographers chosen to be in PDN's 30 for 2008. PDN is a trade magazine for photographers, and every year they select 30 emerging photographers to watch. You can click through all of this year's selects here.

If you would like to see the photographs from Strangely Familiar in person, be sure to stop by Andrea Meislin Gallery for Michal's exhibition opening September 4, 2008.

Michal Chelbin Strangely Familiar
September 4 - October 18, 2008

Andrea Meislin Gallery
526 West 26th Street, Suite 214
New York, New York 10001

Gallery Hours
Tuesday through Saturday 10 am - 6 pm

WANTED: Fall Intern

The bad news is Kim is leaving us to go back to school. The good news is there is a spot for someone new. Are you interested? Are you smart, clever and creative? Are you responsible, reliable and positive? Do you live in New York City? If you answered yes to all of these questions then keep reading.

I have two intern scenarios. One is for any of you in high school. The other is for those of you older than 18 years old (must be out of high-school). Both are from mid-September to mid-December.

High School Intern: 2 days a week after school, for 2 hours each day.
Over 18 Intern: 2 days a week for 5 hours each day.

HOW TO APPLY If you are interested please send me an e-mail: thegirlproject@gmail.com Tell me a little bit about yourself. Explain why you want the internship. List your strongest skills. Be sure to tell me which internship you are applying for and if you are applying for the Over 18 spot, attach a resume.

TGP Feature #3

PHOTOGRAPHER: KIM, AGE 15

© Kim Clancy

Today’s TGP feature is particularly special because not only is she a Girl Project participant, she is also The Girl Project’s summer intern.

I met Kim and her parents at a dinner party last summer. Immediately I was struck by how excited she became as she spoke about photography. Her eyes lit up and she grinned sheepishly as she explained what she was working on. This spring when it was time to find a summer intern it was a no-brainer. I knew Kim would be perfect.

Kim is a great intern. Kim is an amazing photographer!! Last week she and I began looking over some of her personal projects, a few of which you’ll see here. Two distinct stories unfolded in front of us. One, of her life in Manhattan, the other, of her experiences outside of the city. Originally I intended to feature just one of the two. My logic being it would be interesting to focus on one aspect of her work - one aspect of Kim. But the more I studied her images the more I felt both parts together were far more compelling and the less I saw them as separate things. Like all of you, Kim is complex and drawn to exploring multiple areas of life. The images seen here offer us a small glimpse into where she is at today.

Kate: Where are you from?
Kim: I was born and have lived in Manhattan all my life.

Kate: When did you start shooting?
Kim: I started shooting when I was really young. I remember in 5th grade and my parents bought a digital camera for our family vacations. I loved taking pictures of the places that we visited. My first photography class was during sophomore year at my high school, Friends Seminary.

Kate: Do you shoot digital or film?
Kim: Now I shoot with film, mainly black and white. Even the best digital cameras lack a formality that film has. Black and white has been my preference because the quality of the light adds an element of drama to my shots.

Kate: You seem to really be drawn to landscape photography. What is it about landscape that interests you?
Kim: Yes. I love taking landscapes. Those shots always give me great textures and I like to think about the land as always changing. My picture of the same location would feel dramatically different at various times. If you know a place well, you can start to pick up on its changing subtleties and in each picture you can see the unique characteristics.

Kate: Do you prefer shooting in the city or in the countryside?
Kim: I prefer shooting in the countryside because my shoots always have more depth. Though I do like city landscapes, New York City holds a lot of anonymity and ambiguity, so that it is hard to take an intimate landscape.

Kate: I also think your portraits are fantastic. Is it a different experience for you, shooting landscapes vs. people?
Kim: I love taking portraits of both strangers and my friends. I have only taken a couple of shots of strangers but I really loved how they have turned out. In taking any portraits, location is of the essence because the background provides a context.

Kate: Are you close to the people you shoot?
Kim: When shooting my friends, I find that I am able to get a wider range of emotions, because they are very at ease with me behind the camera. I never ask people to "pose" for a photograph because it erases their natural expressions that can't be mimicked on demand. Strangers have a more guarded expression, which adds a mystery that I can't get from the photographs that I take of my friends.

Kate: I really love both your color and B&W work. You approach both really well. Do you have a preference?
Kim: Though I enjoy taking black and white much more than color, I am happy with the results of both.


Kate: Do you think or shoot differently in color vs. b&w?
Kim: I think that I shoot very differently in black and white versus color. When I take black and white photographs, I think about giving my photographs a raw quality through texture and light. In color, though there is more information in the photograph, it is hard for me to capture the same quality of information as in black and white.


Kate: So what are you working on now - any new projects?
Kim: Currently, I am taking a color photography class at ICP. I don't have a lot of experience with color film, which makes shooting slightly daunting. As part of that class I have to take a series about New York City. In addition I continue to work with black and white film.

Kate: Ok - now just for fun... what is your favorite:
Kim:

Band: Johnny Cash
Book: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Movie: Bonnie and Clyde (the original)
Food: Tomato Soup
Activity: Walking around the city with my friends.

© Kim Clancy

© Kim Clancy

© Kim Clancy

© Kim Clancy

© Kim Clancy

© Kim Clancy

Elizabeth White: The TGP Interview

Elizabeth White is a photographer-turned-video-artist who decided to investigate the world of fashion and it's influences on women by bringing her video camera into the dressing room of a clothing store. There, she filmed herself trying on dress after dress, resulting in a film that is, at times, both comedic and tragic. She shows us just how awkward and confusing it is to try to create a public appearance that is in line with the way in which we want to be perceived. We asked Elizabeth a few questions about this exciting piece:

Dressing Room © Elizabeth White

TGP: You say in your statement that, "In our culture, women in particular are held responsible for learning the language of clothing and for developing the related but separate skills of shopping and dressing. Everywhere we go, our female bodies are regularly surveyed as meaningful territory on which social status, personality, and moral character are written." Do you think that women will forever be judged by the way we look? Is this something that we can change?

EW: As far as issues of appearance go, I think we’re in a time when both men’s and women’s relationships to their bodies are changing dramatically. One the one hand, our ability to alter our bodies is expanding, and as Cara Phillips discussed in her interview, cosmetic procedures of all sorts are increasingly common. In one sense it’s a continuation and amplification of the kind of power we try to claim in the dressing room: control over how others will view us. It can feel like freedom to be able to make those kinds of choices. So, I wonder if within certain economic circles the freedom to choose how you look becomes assumed, if then appearance may actually become an even more important social signifier. On the other hand, we are also living in a time where we are increasingly disembodied. We live so much of our lives online now that I’m curious whether our physical presence will actually become less important as we take opportunities to construct our identities digitally and become more invested in our online networks. I think it’s an interesting moment for these issues, to say the least, and I really look forward to seeing how younger women respond to these social changes.

TGP: What lead you to make this video? How did it come about?

EW:I had been interested in the dressing room as a meaningful space for a number of years. Largely I was drawn to it by a desire to understand my own relationship to shopping, and to clothes, and to my body. I kept thinking about what it is that happens in these small strange spaces, and recognizing that this ritual, so easily dismissed as shallow, actually holds a great deal of depth.

TGP: How was the process of making this a video different from making still photographs?

EW:When I first started this project, I began taking still photographs, first of others, and then of myself. There was something that bothered me about reducing the experience to a single frame. It replicated too closely the form of fashion photography, reducing the experience of being a woman trying on a dress to a 2 dimensional, still image of a woman IN a dress. I realized that much of what interested me was in the process, and I liked the idea of showing the work of it, of drawing attention to the time we spend doing this. Working with video was of course, very different from working with a still camera. I felt less posed and more ex-posed. Literally. When I took stills I always shot once the dress was on, but video was always recording, which meant I’d inevitably sometimes be on screen in my underwear. Though a bit intimidating at first, I really felt it was the right choice. It did bring up some funny problems though… for instance, early on I realized that even though I was shooting on different days, if I wanted it to run the video as a continuous piece, for consistency I’d have to always wear the same underwear! Of course video also introduces the element of sound, which in this case I think helped reinforce the atmosphere of the space. You can hear muzak coming over the store’s speakers, and there are moments when you can pick up conversations between other women in neighboring stalls.

TGP: Why did you decide to focus on yourself as the subject? Why not ask someone else to try on dresses for you?

EW: Actually, when I first started the project, I did take photographs of other people trying on clothes (with their permission). It didn’t work well, however for a number of reasons. First, because most stores don’t want you to take pictures, so I’d have to find a way to sneak around. Second, because it was awkward. It’s a different experience to try something on for someone else than it is to try something on in private. I wanted the focus to be on the conversations and performances we have when we are alone. Reducing it to me and my reflection seemed to increase the intimacy of the project, which is what I was going for. Merry Alpern did a project called “Shopping” where she photographed in dressing rooms using a hidden camera. I see that work in a very different way.

TGP: At times, you get stuck inside a tight dress, or you can’t figure out how it is supposed to fit, and it becomes humorous. Was this intentional?

EW: I don’t think it was intentional, but I’m glad its there. I remember one dress in particular, a red knit number with strange elements to it that I just didn’t know what to do with... I think its part of the truth of fashion that sometimes things that we imagine to be glamorous just end up making us feel awkward.

Reflection Stills from Dressing Room © Elizabeth White

TGP: Did you ever feel like you were acting at the time? Did you over-emphasize the difficulties, or the way you responded to a dress? Or would you say that the final piece is an accurate depiction of the way you try on clothes?

EW: I wasn’t trying to “act” necessarily but what I was doing was performance. After all, I wasn’t simply documenting accidentally, but I went in with very clear intentions, setting my camera in a particular way, always trying on the maximum number of dresses allowed by the store, etc. And even the dresses I chose weren’t necessarily dresses I would have wanted to buy, but it was partly about the obsessive ritual of it, the trying and trying and trying. The patterns we make with our actions. I don’t think I over emphasized my responses, but I never forgot I had a camera on me.

TGP: Let's talk about the significance of the dressing room itself. Do you think the video would have the same message if you were trying on your own dresses in your bedroom?

EW: Trying on dresses in a store and in a bedroom are a somewhat different experiences. In a store, we try on things that are on display but which we do not yet own. We are searching through possibilities and determining which items we want to incorporate into our closets. In a way, it’s a kind of “edge” to our identity, a place where we experiment and set boundaries for ourselves. We enter a dressing room to evaluate clothes on our bodies and our bodies in clothes. We experiment. We question: Do I like the style? Does it feel like me? ..Or the me I want to be? And, does it look good on me? Does it make me look good? Do I fit into this dress? Are the arms are too tight? Can I get it over my hips? It’s a kind of judgment room. As I wrote in my statement it is a private space we enter to consider our public reception. We imagine others’ eyes upon us, thinking about our own bodies as if we were outside them. I think, especially as women, we grow up with an understanding that we will be judged on our appearance. And so we sense that there is something at stake in how we dress. So, making decisions about how we present ourselves starts to feel like power, the ability to manipulate how others will view us.

There are certain elements of this when we try on clothes at home, to be sure, but the experience is more extreme in a dressing room because there’s an immediate decision to be made about whether we are going to integrate an article of clothing into our lives, invite it onto our bodies, etc. The dressing room is much more of an in-between space, a structure of uncertainty.

TGP: The dressing room is also a very private space. Can you talk a bit about what it was like for you to bring this into the public realm?

EW: I was interested in making this space of private reflection public because I wanted to bring what I thought was a powerful and complicated experience into a broader conversation. I wanted to make something that asked questions about our everyday habits. When I was developing this piece, I was thinking largely about an audience of women, and how women might relate to it. Admittedly, what I did not fully consider was how men might react to it differently. Making the piece public however, meant sharing it with both men and women, and I couldn’t necessarily control how it was received.

TGP: Did you ever get caught while filming?

EW: No, I never got caught. But I was nervous about it. Especially because an acquaintance who worked as a security guard in high-end retail told me that often times the mirrors are actually one-way glass, and that its perfectly legal for a same-sex guard to watch you in the dressing room. I’m not actually sure I was even breaking any laws, but just the same, I’m glad I didn’t have to explain myself.

TGP: The store you are in is sort of a discount chain, correct? How did you select this specific store? Were issues of socio-economic class part of the decision? Do you think the video would be different if you were trying on Chanel and Prada?

EW: I did go to Prada earlier in the project, when I was shooting stills, and it was a whole different thing. Part of what I liked about working in the discount chain was the anti-glamour of it: the fluorescent lights and ugly walls, the muzak and the plastic hangers on the floor. The desperate search for beauty and glamour is made all the more apparent in an environment that lacks it. And the fact that this is a discount chain store means that the stock is made up of leftovers and rejects from the higher-end stores. There’s something sad and yet determined about shopping there. An acknowledgement of one’s financial limitations perhaps, but also a desire to reach beyond them. At the same time, by stripping clothes from their fancy environments, these discount stores also expose the hype that creates that aura of glamour in the first place. I like that they offer an intersection of worlds and that more women might identify with this type of shopping experience than would feel at home in a luxury retail store. It was also easier to do this project with a certain level of anonymity, without a personal attendant coming to check on me. The most interaction I ever got in this store was “Put ‘em back on the hangers when you’re done ladies!”

Dressing Room © Elizabeth White

TGP: Can you tell us a bit about how you chose to present the final piece? Why in a corner? And why did you decide to split the video into two halves (the real you and the reflected you)?

EW: Ultimately, I chose to present the piece as a video installation; running two projectors into a corner of the gallery, aligning them and masking parts of the projections so that the two videos could meet. The videos were shot with two separate cameras recording simultaneously. One had been focused on me directly, and the other on my reflection in the mirror. I allowed for a slight delay between the video feeds when projected, so that what at first seemed like a seamless, natural scene, was ruptured. The videos showed me trying on dresses, one after another, in an endless loop. I think the running time was about an hour or so. In deciding how to install this work, I wanted to create a visual that seemed to be ongoing; something that a gallery visitor could look at and then walk by again later and have the sense that the “performance” was repetitive and never-ending. Showing the video in a corner felt right to me because it seemed like the projections were seeking some sort of privacy, even in the open space of the gallery. And, more metaphorically, it felt accurate to suggest: “we’re backed into a corner and this sometimes feels like the only kind of power we have”.

The split between the two videos relates to the idea that as women we grow up learning to see ourselves from the outside as well as from within our own experience. John Berger, in his often-quoted book Ways of Seeing notes that:

“To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman’s self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From her earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.

And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.

She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another.” (p46)

TGP: You are the woman behind the blog Hot Art Action! It’s a great resource for listings of artist lectures and other art events. There are so many of these events happening all the time! What has been the most successful/compelling lecture or panel you have been to?

EW: That’s tough. I go to so many! I really enjoyed the curator slam event at The Drawing Center in the fall, and since this is The Girl Project, I also have to mention the great symposium held at MoMA last winter call Feminist Futures. All the audio is available online so even if you missed it, you can download lectures as MP3s. They have tons of other great stuff on there too.

Check it out: http://www.moma.org/visit_moma/audio/2007/pub_prog/downloadAAPAA_2007.html

This past April, MoMA also did a nice panel on gender and film with Chantal Akerman, Trinh Minh-ha, and Laura Mulvey.

Another stand-out is when I went to hear Beth Campbell at the Whitney in February when she had an installation there. She and I share a lot of interests, so it was really fantastic to hear her speak and hear more about her projects.

Part of what I like about going to lectures is that I get to learn about more art and hear it discussed in different ways, and I also just like getting a sense of who various artists are as people. How do they present themselves? How do they think about their work?

TGP: At what age did you start photographing? Can you tell me about your first experience with a camera?

EW: My aunt and uncle gave me a camera when I was in 5th grade. They always gave the best presents! I remember how empowering it was to feel like I could make my own images, totally separate form whatever my parents were taking pictures of. I’m not saying my photographs were particularly brilliant, but the important thing for me was that they were mine. They were photographs of my life from my point of view. When I was in high school I started to join the photography club, but then very lamely dropped out because none of my friends were in it. So I didn’t pursue photography in any kind of serious creative way until after college. I took my first class when I was 24.

TGP: Is there one specific photograph that has always been an influence on the way you see things? Which one? Why?

EW: Since I started studying photography fairly late, I didn’t have much knowledge of photo history until I started taking classes in my 20s. That said, in high school and into college, I, like most girls I knew, was big into cutting things out of magazines and making arrangements of clippings. That process of choosing and reassembling felt like a creative act, and more than that it felt important for expressing who I felt I was. I remember one moment in college when I looked around my dorm room and realized, hmmm.. every single image on my wall is of a woman looking into the distance. That felt significant to me. And I was surprised that I had been acting out such a consistent choice without even noticing. It made me curious, about myself and about my relationship to images. I started to pay more attention to what I was drawn to, and to ask more questions about the photographs I encountered everyday in magazines and popular culture.

TGP: Do you have any advice for young girls just starting out in the photography world?

EW: Pursue things that interest you, even if your friends aren’t involved. And, if you feel passionately about something, stick with it. Even if you meet with criticism, there’s a reason you feel so strongly. Listen to the questions others’ raise, but keep exploring until it all clicks.

Andrea Modica: Treadwell

© Andrea Modica

Andrea Modica (who, unfortunately, does not have her own website) became known for a book she published in 1996 called Treadwell. She made these images in her rural town in upstate New York between 1986 and 1995, focusing on a young girl named Barbara and her family.

© Andrea Modica

The images are not meant to be a document of a geographic area, or even of a family. Many of her photographs are staged. Instead, they examine relationships and are a psychological exploration of her subjects. Somehow Andrea twists reality into fantasy, and she creates stories that seem to have no concrete narrative, yet they suggest to us that something incredibly complex is happening.

© Andrea Modica

Barbara's family has fourteen children living in a very harsh economic circumstance. According to Andrea, ". . .this is a very large family, many of them did not make it through grammar school, they are on and off welfare, and involved with some violence. Their values are very different from mine, but through this project over the years we've found some common ground, in addition to which my fears and prejudices have been challenged."

© Andrea Modica

In the book, E. Annie Proulx's writes an introductory essay:

"There is a Treadwell, population 200, in rural New York south of the Susquehanna, south of interstate 88, and it is the place where, ten years ago, Andrea Modica took the first and now famous photograph in this study, two children caught in the hands of adults; we look and wonder, are they sheltered or imprisoned, resigned or straining against the hold, is the clasp tender, is the bathrobed child prevented from hearing something dreadful, is the other seeing something that can never be forgotten? The slant of white buttons, the tiny downward glint of a ring introduces us to the richly fleshed and beautiful child who is the central figure in Treadwell, moving from this moment out of childhood toward the shoals of adult life."

© Andrea Modica

"For a decade Modica followed her subjects from one decayed farmhouse to another, photographing in an atmosphere of crowded rooms and generations of bad luck. The photographs are not some chronicle of despair, but caught moments in lives ruled by hard situations; there are possibilities of anything."