Week 1 Assignment: Barbara Morgan

City Shell by Barbara Morgan

Incoming by Barbara Morgan

1. Barbara Morgan. Barbara Morgan: Photomontage. Published in 1980.
2. City Shell is on page 15 and Incoming is on page 43.
3. City Shell draws my attention because of the shapes she is using in it. She uses diagonal parallel lines across the bottom and the twisting shape of the shell draws you eyes upwards from there. Also she uses a lot of contrast to draw your attention around the image- she has the pure black on the top majority of the photo with the bright white and light grays that pop the shell. Lastly, my favorite part is the little people walking in the shell. They don’t grab your attention right away and you have to look closely to notice what they are.
4. Incoming interests me because of the darkness of the photo. It is only a photo of a slightly open window, which is the only light source of the photograph. And this image does not take up the whole paper, but rather about a quarter of it. But the interesting part is the scratches she scattered along the bottom and left side. These scratches add to the darkness of the photo and make you wonder what happened with this window. There is very little variety in grays in the photo, it mostly contains sharp blacks and whites with only hints of gray tones in the field outside the window.
5. I first picked up the book because I liked her name. Then I really liked the image on the front because I am interested in experimenting with lights. When I opened the book I found that she experimented a lot with double exposures, light, photograms, and other different photography techniques and was interested.
6. I think one of Morgan’s strengths is her ability to plan her double exposures. Most of the photos said they had be pre-planned, which is interesting to see how well the came together. Another strength is her readiness to experiment with different darkroom techniques. These add to her interesting qualities as many photographers did not, and still do not, use these techniques in the darkroom. Another of her strengths is her ability to use organic and geometric shapes in her photos to make them more interesting and draw your eye around the photograph.
7. Multiple things combine to create a good photo. A photo needs to make someone feel something by using light, subject matter, or other elements. A good photograph has unity and if you remove just one thing from the scene, it ruins the feel of the photograph. It needs to capture someone’s attention, whether it includes words, people, still-life, or any other object. A good photo can follow the rules of art including rule of thirds, composition, color, space, texture, rhythm, etc, but it does not always have to.