Light, Composition, and Honest Expression

Lucas Foglia, drawn by Izzy P.

This week marked the finish of the semester's first visiting artist residency. Lucas Foglia, photographer extraordinaire, spent ten days working with OS28 in and out of the studios. OS28'er Izzy introduces Lucas: "Lucas Foglia’s work has roots from his childhood spent on his family’s farm not far from New York City. His most recent work, titled “A Natural Order,” focuses on the details of lifestyles alternative in their essence, by sustaining themselves close to the earth. From images of coal-miners to families living in wigwams, we can reflect on our own lives. We ask ourselves why the images provoke feelings of strangeness, familiarity, or quiet beauty. The poignancy of Foglia’s photos are snapshots from weeks on the inside of individual lives--an existence based on a genuine connection to the land. Currently, Foglia teaches at San Francisco Art Institute, and is showing his work in six countries this spring." 

Over the course of several days, Lucas asked the students to make 300 photographs of "things that interest you." Students then carefully reviewed their stock of photos, searching for a common theme, and curated a suite of 20 images that embodied and demonstrated that theme. Their final task was to write an artist statement. Izzy writes, "From the beginning of the week with Foglia to our final presentation, it was enlightening to see the evolving interest and sophistication that took place in our photos. Lighting, narratives, composition, honest expressions, and 
complexity were reoccurring themes that Foglia pointed out in our photos and had us 
strive for."

Liz, Maximum, and Joanna have offered to share images from their final suite of photographs. Excerpts from each student's artist statement accompany the images. 

LIZ

I am an artist because art is a way to communicate my feelings of my past.

I am drawn to the decaying of life and objects that I  find in my world. While I find parallels between destruction in the world and my own life, I can express things more positively through my artwork in ways that help me and my community. 

JOANNA

I am drawn to the idea of movement amidst stillness. We can never freeze a moment in time with our bare eyes, but in this series of photographs, I attempt to capture these instants. 

Our memories are often blurred, and there is very little we can do to preserve precise details. I seek to create an unreal ghostliness and eeriness through photographing striking settings while juxtaposing harsh lines with fluid figures.

MAXIMUM

Everyone’s perspective changes how he or she views the world. 

For my project I wanted to expand on my curiosity about how depth of field and focus affect an image and how it is perceived. I explored this through experimenting with multiple perspectives and different depths of field.