Rachel Verhaaren Photography

continuing with the theme of “finally posting work from last semester” i give you my first assignment from body in photo taught by Regina DeLuise.

the class was pretty self-explanatory, learning how to use the figure in our images. our first assignment was to choose a myth and create images inspired by that myth. i chose the greek myth of sisyphus which tells the story of a greedy and self-obsessed king who is punished by the gods to roll a stone up a hill, only for it to roll back down, for the rest of eternity.

i interpreted this myth as a person dealing with a task that can never be accomplished and tried to relate it to my own life. i was a dancer for about ten years before i had to give it up for other interests. i chose to depict myself attempting dance poses that i used to be able to do with ease.

while the final images may look graceful, the extended exposure informs the viewer that i struggled to hold the pose. this is a sisyphean task for me because i will never be able to get my body back to the way it was when i danced.

while i am specifically a photography major at the Maryland Institute College of Art, all students at the college are required to take a few studio courses outside of their major. i participated in two theatrical productions for credit and my other two classes were taken within the fibers department. after the required introductory class, i chose to take ‘accumulation and metaphor’ taught by jessica braiterman; a class focused on the variety of ways we experience collecting and the meaning behind it.

because of the time needed to establish any sort of collection, we were given only three assignments during the course of the semester. we were kept very busy, however, with great field trips, short readings and informative in-class demonstrations that related to the coursework. the three assignments were as follows:

accumulation in response to the natural world

accumulation in response to the human condition

a collection of your choosing (the longest of the three- this project spanned the entire semester and was designed to be the most extensive and thoughtful)

i chose to focus on a certain material that i have worked with in the past and has certain significance to me. plaster gauze is an extremely versatile medium and i wanted to explore what is has to offer.

natural world

my response to the natural world began by looking at coral and sea life as well as the human body. while the human condition is another assignment, the human body itself is a natural entity that has evolved and adapted over time. i chose to cast my fingers in plaster gauze and stack them in an almost honeycomb formation. the structure they became speaks to the order that sometimes occurs within the chaos of nature. the plaster gauze was able to cast a general shape (a tapered tube) while also removing some of the evidence that it was my finger.

human condition

balloons have an important role within the human condition. we find them festive and use them on a multitude of occasions. again playing with plaster gauze i wanted to remove and almost negate the identity of the balloon. while i did hang the balloons on the wall to allude to their desired height, they are heavy. they droop and sag. this is not how we know balloons to act. the color and surface of the objects are cold and pock-marked, not bright, shiny and welcoming.

collection

these plaster gauze strips were created as a collection of anxieties. the gauze, used to mend broken bones acted as a band-aid-like coping mechanism for unfortunate occurrences, big and small, that happened within the span of a semester. the grid arrangement, covering a wall floor to ceiling, gives the viewer a glimpse into the overwhelming nature of the events, especially when complied and displayed.

** a de-installation shot. the last balloon was too high and much too artsy to take down. it begged to be photographed and left for the next people that entered the room**

recently, i’ve been trying to really look at fashion photography and i stumbled across these images shot by Richard Burbridge for Dazed and Confused magazine. i enjoy seeing that the concept of the shoot, the styling of the clothing and the make-up/hair really worked in sync. sometimes i see fashion shoots and i’m completely confused- garments that make no sense in relation to the space they’re in, punk hair with baby doll dresses (and not in an ironic way). every part of this shoot was done thoughtfully and i really admire that. i’m so completely obsessive with my own images; i’m happy to see other people working so hard to make sure all the details are in place.

i’ll admit i don’t get the doll pieces 100% but it works! i really love it!

while browsing the dazed and confused website i also saw an interview with Collier Schorr. i’ve only ever heard her mentioned in a fine art capacity so it was nice to see that her work was bridging the gap between fine art and fashion photography. i do enjoy her series You Are the Weather as well as some of her other fine art works but i didn’t love what i saw on the magazine website. anyway, if nothing else it was great seeing an artist capable of reaching both audiences.

i have been obsessing about this photo for months now. i think it is quiet and beautiful. i’m usually not the snap-shot type but this has so much more consideration than just a point and shoot that i can really enjoy its casual quality.

i feel guilty for being so horrible at keeping my blog going. i was never good at keeping a diary as a kid. anyway, since it is 100 degrees outside and i’m afraid to leave my bed, here goes.

recently i’ve been hitting a sort of road block, photographically. my current employer (or internship sponsor) asked me who my favorite photographer was. i couldn’t give him an answer. sure, i like a bunch of photographers- all the greats, of course. but i didn’t stumble across a photograph and decide that, because of this mind-blowing piece i was going to become a photographer. my decision was much more selfish than all of that.

i love doing it for me. for how it makes me feel. for how it allows me to express all the crazy stuff in my head. and how it lets people understand. ansel adams is great, but i’m my inspiration.

so anyway, all of this has definitely got me thinking. my boss also gave me a ton of photography/fashion books to read. they’ve been pretty interesting so far. so i’m really going to try and figure out who i like and why. maybe that will get me excited again.

let’s get started:

i found this picture while looking at the imdb page for little ashes, a movie about the young lives of salvador dali and frederico garcia lorca. (robert pattinson just also happens to be in it). i haven’t seen it yet but it didn’t get great reviews, so i bet it’s decent.

**do i give credit to the director of photography for the image? wish i knew who it was!

i adore this image of marina gatell. i love the tones of the out of focus background (blurry is my thing) the gorgeous dress and her crazy neck/collarbones! i have a tough time photographing people, i want to do stuff like this.

i hope to see more wonderful images when i eventually get around to watching the movie.

ta ta for now. hope to see you soon

as this is first official blog post on my first official website (the other posts are from a previous blog), i would like to introduce myself. my name is rachel verhaaren and i am at this moment twenty and one quarter years old. i am a student studying photography in baltimore, maryland but i am originally from long island, new york. while my major at school is photography i also love theater, music, singing and dancing. i’ve always had an interest in fiber arts as well. this website/blog was built for me by my amazingly talented boyfriend Anthony Mattox, who also attends school here in baltimore.

while the portfolio portion of this site will mainly contain finished pieces and series pertaining to my photographic work, i hope i can be consistent enough to make the blog an outlet for looking at:
brainstorms for projects
other artists i find interesting
additional art i make that might not fit in with the work in the portfolio
events and other fun happenings!

so sit back, relax and don’t hold your breath because it might be a while until i gather some speed!

when i first came to MICA the photography class i was most excited to take was alternative processes. i came out of the class not necessarily thrilled with what i learned or what i had produced but i still think it was an important class to have experienced.

we worked on a project that threw me for a bit of a loop at first- a negative exchange during which i was handed abstract pinhole images i had no interest in. but i was on this circle kick and i think these turned out ok. they’re paper negative collages scanned to create digital negatives and then contact printed with the van dyke brown process.

we also had to make images from our own negatives. i printed digital negatives and suspended them by pins away from a cream piece of mat board. these are just the images sans fancy display stuff but i think you get the idea.

for our final i chose to scan 8mm film that my mother gave me. the film is from when my grandparents were young, my family has copied the film onto VHS so i could do whatever i wanted with it. i enlarged the images and made wintergreen transfers of two sections of the film, sixteen frames each since 8mm film runs sixteen frames per second. these are just some selections from one of them. i think it is my grandmother but i’m not sure.

Lynn would give us an assignment and two weeks in which to complete it. we had one week to work on the project on our own before she presented slides of images that related to the assignment. then we would have another week to work before critique. i thought this was a great way to have us think for ourselves as well as showing us inspiring images from other photographers.

so here are some images from the class!

single image narrative

multiple image narrative
*printed twice, viewed both backwards and forwards*

final
images presented in a handmade book

agh! sorry for the image overload! i’m really going to try to update this regularly so it won’t just be a million pictures at once.

figured i needed one of these eventually. i don’t have the computer skills to make a real site for my work yet so, like everyone else has done before me, this will be a place for images of work/work in progress/inspiration/annoying musings/etc… i don’t have any of my work scanned from this semester- none of it was done digitally. so once i have a chance to resize some stuff from last semester i’ll get it up.
hey, it’s a start.