Visual Research

OK. I wanted to share something with y'all. As of tomorrow, I embark on my visual research project for my photography class. For the next two weeks I will be focusing on shooting one specific object. Shannon, our leader, in her own crazy and daring way, said, "I give you all permission to be obsessed with something." It's been a process for me as I've attempted to narrow down my choices. The possibilities are endless. Seriously. So much of the world that I want to shoot. So stinkin' much!

But over the weekend, I did a few of the introspective activities she encouraged us to do. Questions such as:

What would you be if you were:
*a song
*a mood
*an animal
*a texture
*a season
*a sound
*a font
*an era
etc!

Nothing. No inspiration came from that. I had all of these great ideas. I want to capture perseverance, the human spirit, love, etc. I was so frustrated. Just pick something and go with it, Charity. Holy cow--why is this so hard? I think part of it is that I know there are a variety of things that I enjoy. One of my friends once described me as a multi-layer bean dip. Now I was experiencing that in myself. Ugh. Shooting people is hard, and portraits are the next assignment. So, over a pumpkin spice latte (my first of the season), my friend Paige looked me in the eyes and said, "Chare, I think you need an object." Next she said, "You need to take pictures of shoes." She knows that Shannon has been asking us to explore what we're drawn to and what we really really really like. We've been encouraged to just be free in that. Paige knows that I love shoes. And in that moment I knew she had nailed it.

My visual research topic: shoes.

So for the next two weeks I will be taking photos of shoes on people all over the LA Area. I have some exciting places all over the city lined up--and I feel kinda adventurous and super curious to see what comes of this. So...if I see you and I have my camera in hand, be ready...I will probably ask if I can take a picture of your shoes.

I look forward to seeing how this unfolds visually and artistically. I figure there is a story behind every pair of shoes---and it won't take much to get obsessed with them!!!

Look forward to sharing more about it. No words for this research project. Just images.

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For class we read an article, entitled, "Seeing" and I wanted to share a clip from it, because I believe it says so much. And, it's one of the main reasons why doing a visual research project is so important for me.

Our lives are dominated by written and spoken words because they are so useful for communicating a wide range of ideas and emotions. Our schools emphasize reading and writing because this is currently the dominant mode of human communication. Reading is important because we cannot remember important and significant information about history or law or religion. There is too much information for any one mind to contain. As a result we have become word dependent.

If we fail to gain adequate reading skills, our culture will push us to the side and label us as slow or lacking in motivation. Unfortunately our quest for verbal literacy has resulted in other deficits. Our educational system, so focused on books and computers, often stops including music or art education after the early primary years. Since art is elective, not required, in our middle schools and high schools, it is no wonder that many of us are visually illiterate. Consequently many of us are unable to see the value of art, for our culture makes it clear we do not need visual literacy.

When visual literacy is considered elective everyone suffers. For visual artists it means the audience for their art is small. It means that our culture shuts its eyes to a large body of human input. It means that those who communicate with paint or stone or fabric or any other visual media are most often ignored or dismissed, not because what they have to say is irrelevant, but because so many of the audience have chosen either consciously or unconsciously to remain visually illiterate.

Some will argue that our culture is skilled at seeing as a result of cinema, television, video and digital imagery. There is some truth in this since each of these media has a significant visual presence. At the same time, however, most cinema, video and digital imagery is dominated by verbal communication. Films are dominated by dialogue, by sequentially scripted narratives, or by graphic text. Seldom in mainstream productions is the visual allowed to dominate. Such experimentation is most often relegated to alternative venues.

Thus in our highly verbal culture we can watch cinema, video or digital media and still get by with a low level of visual literacy. For we can depend on the text to bail us out. We can get the main point, we can follow the story, but we may miss many of the subtleties of visual communication. We don't notice how a skilled director uses lighting to hide or reveal, or how a shift in viewpoint may affect our emotional response to a particular character.