School Papers | Ceative Images-Rustic Roads

American Progress by John Gast – Manifest Destiny Revisited

March 15, 2010 by rusticroads

This famous painting, American Progress by John Gast (1872) came to symbolize the concept of Manifest Destiny in the late nineteenth century.

“American Progress is an allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny. Here Columbia, intended as a personification of the United States, leads civilization westward with American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she travels; she holds a school book. The different economic activities of the pioneers are highlighted and, especially, the changing forms of transportation. The Native Americans and wild animals flee.” (Wikipedia, “Manifest Destiny. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny )

My idea was to update this symbol to reflect something of the 140 years that have passed since it was created. My vision is somewhat on the negative side; however I included some positive elements as well. I place my additions all to the right of Columbia – indicating a linear form of development from the past to the present. I tried to continue with Gast’s emphasis on transportation, including freeways, a Maglev Train, F-22 jet fighters and the space shuttle launching.

This project metamorphosed as I worked on it – some originally planned elements didn’t work (sometimes after spending some time working on them). However I am pleased with my overall result. The cityscape (an aerial view of Tokyo) fit perfectly behind Columbia. I like the industrial smokestacks and space shuttle in the background, however they are a little hard to see – I couldn’t find anyplace else to put them and had to keep them small to maintain some sort of realistic perspective. One particular effect I am quite pleased with was duplicating the dark sky in the upper left of the painting, flipping it horizontally and copying it to the upper right side. This transformed the original bright outlook (bright sky behind Columbia) to a vision of an even darker future. I made the new dark future even darker than the darkness Columbia is displacing.

I could do this project again and come up with a completely different result – the possibilities are endless. I could do a strictly historical interpretation or a more positive one – this is just what I ended up with.

One thing I learned is that things can get complicated with a large number of layers, and so it’s a good idea to label them clearly!

I think this idea works pretty well. There are some elements I would consider changing, if I could find better images. Over all, I am satisfied with this result.

(Project for class at the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois – Photo-montage dealing with symbols or metaphors. Cropped to 12×18 inches to conform with assignment)

You may view a larger size on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-henneman/4433204995/sizes/o/

American Progress - John Gast

American Progress, John Gast, 1872 (original)

read comments (1)

One Old Farm – Extended Photographic Project

February 18, 2010 by rusticroads

One Old Farm - Extended Project

This project has separate objectives. From a cultural perspective it will include the documentation of an single old farmstead in rural Kane County, Illinois. This is of importance in a historical sense as this property will no doubt be developed in the future, probably in the near future – it is currently owned by a real estate company (Inland Real Estate Corporation, Oak Brook, Illinois), is located at the intersection of two major highways and is, in fact, within the boundaries of the Village of Sugar Grove. It is not currently for sale. So it is an opportunity to document a part of American History that is rapidly disappearing before the onslaught of suburbia. On the artistic level I envision this project as being a study in light, form and texture. This abandoned farmstead contains a house as well as two barns and other outbuildings in various states of decay. There are a wealth of possibilities for shooting form and texture both inside and out – weathered wood, pealing paint, heaps of rubbish and partially fallen down structures, all on a heavily wooded eleven acre plot. This will not be a bunch of rustic decaying barn photographs that are so popular today – in fact it would be impossible to get such typical quaint and romantic scenes at this location because of its situation in the center of a heavily wooded area. The primary inspiration for this project is Wright Morris, a photographer who traveled the country taking photographs of the rural Midwest between the mid-thirties and mid-fifties. He photographed what he saw then as a disappearing America. I have decided to take a slightly different angle, choosing to focus on one site – One Old Farm.

I conceive of this as being an ongoing project, continuing well beyond the class, for perhaps one year, in order to document this property in all seasons. The photographs will all be in black and white, probably a selection of 11×14 and 8×10 window mounted or possibly even framed prints. I believe that black and white will be better for the artistic study of light, form and texture while contributing to an “old time” or nostalgic feeling for something from the past that is rapidly disappearing. The number by the end of the semester will certainly be more that 10. I also plan of publishing these photographs (as well as many I don’t print) to a separate gallery on my web site, Rustic Roads Photography. Photographs will use natural light for the most part, however I may shoot at night using flash or experiment with painting with light to see if such techniques fit into the project. I will shoot digital for the most part but may also use black and white film, which I will develop and scan.

I plan on shooting at least once per week at different times of day and during various weather conditions (sun, overcast, night, rain, fog, etc). Photographs will be selected and edited (at least in rough form) as I go. I will contact the owners of the property to ask for permission, however as they are absentee landlords I doubt that they would ever know that I was there. This will be an ongoing project and the portion completed in class will be (late) Winter and Spring which will set the tone for the remainder of the project.

read comments (0)

Colorized Black and White Photograph

February 5, 2010 by rusticroads

The following is the result of a project I had to do for my Photoshop class at the College of DuPage. I was quite impressed with the results. Following the photo is an edited version of the instructions for the assignment.

Colorized Black and White Photograph

The following are the instructions as given by my instructor, Curt Cechowicz:

“Convert Grayscale document to RGB.

Repeat the following steps with the circle bullet for each area of different color!
o Create a new layer and name it something useful (hair, skin, eyes, etc…).
o Change the blending mode of the layer to Color.
o Use the color picker to choose a color to paint with.
o Paint over the appropriate area using the Brush tool (Normal Mode, 100% Opacity, 100% Flow).
o Remove color from areas you accidentally painted, with the Eraser Tool.
o Modify the color by adding an adjust layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation).
In the New Layer dialog box make sure to check the “Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask”
o Adjust the Hue and Saturation sliders to modify the color.
Repeat for new area or color until the entire image has color!”

Begin in the background and work forward. Using the Hue/Saturation adjustment you may turn the color you’ve piced into almost anything, so there is no need to get the exact color to start with.

read comments (0)

The Standard of Ur – an Overview

January 23, 2010 by rusticroads

The ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur was “rediscovered” by J. G. Taylor, who first excavated in 1853 and 1854. Extensive excavations were conducted by a joint expedition of the University Museum of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the British Museum, London, led by Leonard Woolley from 1922 to 1934 (Moon). The Standard itself was found between 1922 and 1924. The city of Ur was founded as early as 4000 to 5000 BCE, however it first came to prominence about 2500 BCE, during what is called the First Dynasty of Ur. The most significant area excavated by Wooley is a complex of Royal Tombs located near the Temple Buildings. These tombs had been ransacked during ancient times, however in chamber D of tomb PG779 he made one of his most startling discoveries, which he referred to as the “Standard of Ur.” This artifact dates to 2400-2600 BCE.

The Standard of Ur is an inlaid wooden trapezoidal box measuring 8.5 x 19.5 inches. It is a mosaic of shell, red limestone and lapis lazuli held together with bitumen glue. It consists of two panels – one depicting scenes of war (the War Panel) and the other, a banquet (the Peace Panel). (more…)

read comments (0)

Human Representation in the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic Periods

January 21, 2010 by rusticroads

The representation of the human figure changed considerably over this period – which is not surprising considering it’s length. The greatest changes appeared as the human life-style changed, in particular during the Mesolithic, when humans gradually transited from the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle which was dependent on wild game (the Paleolithic) and the more sedate agrarian lifestyle of the Neolithic, with permanent abodes, agriculture and domesticated animals. (more…)

read comments (0)

Kent State Revisited – John Filo’s Photograph

by rusticroads

One of the iconic photographs of the Vietnam War protest era is one taken by Kent State University photography student John Filo on May 4th, 1970 – the day of the “Kent State Massacre” in which four students were shot dead by the National Guard.

Filo was a senior at Kent State that year. He had been out of town for several days – over the weekend, and so he had missed a lot of the “excitement” – students were protesting President Nixon’s April 30th announcement that the US was bombing Cambodia. There were protests early Friday Morning followed by some violence around the bars that night. On Saturday, May 2nd the town’s mayor announced a state of emergency and requested help from the Governor. Ohio Governor James Rhodes sent in the National Guard, who arrived at about 10 PM. By that time, the campus’s ROTC building was burning. Sunday was relatively quiet, with some students cleaning up downtown areas after the rioting. There was a threat of marital law and a curfew.

On Monday, May 4th things got out of hand. Filo had returned from his weekend away. He was working in the schools photo lab (his job) and broke for lunch and to take some photographs of the action. He just wanted one good photograph, which he soon got – a student waving a black flag in front of the National Guard, which ran full page in the subsequent Life article (May 15, 1970, p. 30). Priding himself on getting a great shot, he wandered around, and took a total of two rolls of film before, during and after the shooting (at first he believed they were firring blanks). The photo that is the subject of this paper is of 14 year old Mary Ann Vecchio crying over the body of student Jeffery Miller. (more…)

read comments (0)

Aubrey Burl – Stonehenge’s Breton Connections

January 18, 2010 by rusticroads

Aubrey Burl – Stonehenge’s Breton Connections

Aubrey Burl was principal lecturer in archaeology, Hull College of Higher Education, East Riding of Yorkshire. He has published numerous books and articles on the subject of the various stone circles of the British Isles and especially on Stonehenge.

Burl has postulated two controversial theories concerning the construction of Stonehenge – one is that the bluestones were transported to the Salisbury Plain by the glaciers, as opposed to human transport from Wales; the other is that the persons who constructed Stonehenge were strongly influenced by the customs of Brittany, across the English Channel. (more…)

read comments (0)