My series of twelve photographs, “Howe House,” depicts various objects in and around the historical Howe House farmstead. Many of the objects are everyday items that have been preserved and displayed. Other objects are more modern and still used today. It is easy to see that the family members wanted tools with great quality that would work well and last for a long time. While taking the photographs, I often framed in objects so that the entire object isn’t visible. I made this choice partially because I was interested in the composition and line of the entire image instead of the object itself. This also helps draw the viewer to a focal point and adds intrigue and ambiguity to an otherwise straightforward tool. By closing in on each tool, it also shows the viewer a sense of the personal connection the past family would have had with each object, almost as if the object were in a hand, used close to the body. One artist that influenced my work, Christopher Payne, focuses on color, line, texture, and repetition in his photographs of spaces. Even though my framing is drastically more zoomed in, I paid attention to the subtle colors and textures around the Howe farmstead. His subject matter tends to be manufactured and industrial. In general, my interest in the objects of the area influenced the direction of my work. The preservation of the objects to describe the life of a family of the past brought me to focus on these objects in an attempt to understand the Howe family and the time period. As I continued to take photographs, I began to see a connection between the past and the present when I noticed a groundskeeper’s impact on the area. I later learned that the groundskeeper had been an aid during the last years of the last relative in the Howe family, and therefore acts as a literal connection between these two periods.
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AuthorFall 2016 Photography 2 Course Archives
December 2016
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