Vik Muniz Part 2

THE ARTISTIC PROCESS

Vik Muniz explains in his video how he went from making 'earth photographs' from a smaller scale to a larger scale. He began by creating earthworks at home on tables out of dirt and other earth products, but then realized that he should pay respect where respect is due, and create these earthworks exactly where the earth he was using for them originated. Resulting in many pieces, one of which can be seen on the right. Vik Muniz's artistic process for these earthworks is a much similar process as to how I create my own pieces of art.

Yesterday, I was working on my project 'things that go bump in the night,' and for one of the photographs I started with the idea of 'afraid of being alone.' I know a few people that are terrified of going to sleep if there is no other person in the house, and even people who are just terrified of being without company for any period of time. I realized that this idea would be difficult to portray, but I thought I would give it a shot. I came up with the idea that I would mess around with the furniture in my room (much to my mom's dismay) and photograph a person sitting in the middle of emptiness. I thought the idea was alright, not my best, but fortunately, it led to what I think is an even better idea.

The other photographs I had taken for this series were all dark and had distinct shadows, but since the camera was zoomed out completely for the lonesome photograph, I couldn't get the same shadows I had gotten on the other photographs because I had to set up the light farther away from the subject. In my previous photographs, I had held the light right beneath my subject so that there were very distinctive differences between light and dark. But as I said, unfortunately in the 'afraid of being alone' shot, I couldn't get the same vibe. Fortunately, just as Vik Muniz started with an idea but moved onto a better one, I found a way cooler shot. With the camera being so far away, it threw large shadows along the wall, and in one of my photographs the subject had moved her head so that she was looking at the shadow and her expression was complete terror. And so, miraculously, I found my shot; afraid of your own shadow. I moved the camera in closer and moved the light closer as well so that I could have the same balance between light and dark as in the other photographs, but with this cooler (or so I think) idea.

Vik Muniz moved from one idea and expanded it to a better more extravagant one; this artistic process is common and what I used in finding my final photograph for my own photography project.