Georgia O'Keeffe & Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities

I recently enjoyed this joint exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and thought I would briefly discuss it for extra credit. I had only read brief mentions of the exhibit, and stumbled into the museum not expecting much as I had been there several months ago to see Recognize! and, of course, Colbert. In truth, I was only trying to pass the time before a dinner reservation, but I'm so glad I stopped in.

What I was expecting of the exhibit was stark contrast, as I envision O'Keeffe's art as colorful, airy, and light, while greyscale, powerful, and large-scale speak to Adams' work.

Entering the exhibit, it seemed that my expectations were affirmed. The signature style of O'Keeffe's paintings jumped out at me, but Adams' work was quieter. The longer I spent in the exhibit, the more their works complemented each other beautifully, just as the museum intended. Their interpretations of Southwest-style architecture, and examinations of small objects in nature became more and more alike the longer I looked at them.

This exhibit was highly successful in comparing and contrasting the work of two iconic American artists, two friends really. Their examination of the Southwest is particularly striking, and really shows that no matter how different two things may look at first glance, the longer you look, the more alike they become. This is true in the exhibit in terms of O'Keeffe vs. Adams, painting vs. photograph, color vs. greyscale, and dreamlike vs. real.

Finally, I found that this exhibit really proved to me how important placement, environment, and a work's surroundings are in personal interpretation of the work. I interpreted Ansel Adams' photographs much differently than I did when I saw them at the Corcoran with Annie Leibovitz's works a few months earlier.

My Filmmaking Experience

The process of shooting my video was rather complicated, considering the simplicity of my video. First I realized that shooting from the steps of the Dav would be difficult considering how often people walk in and out of there. Instead, we shot the steps at the back of Batelle which were much less traveled.

Another problem we encountered was that as I was moving the tripod to get the second shot of the video, someone came up and locked their bike to the handrail on the steps, taking center stage in my shot. Luckily, the narrative indicated a passing of time between the two shots, so the slight change of set didn't change the story.

Something that I noticed that reminded me of Blow Up was that I verbally explained what I wanted to see to my teammates, but they then did something different than what I envisioned. I thought I had done a pretty good job explaining, but turns out, just like the characters realized, we all see things differently, especially in our minds, so verbally explaining something visual isn't always the best route. Of course this project also revealed diverse execution styles among our group. I was slow and deliberate while others encouraged improvisation. I think both types will present interesting films.

I am excited to see my film; watching it back on the camera's tiny screen was pretty anticlimactic. I am not sure if I will like the somewhat slanted angle that I used in my second shot, and I'm not sure if I will be pleased with my framing. I definitely think that what I envisioned and what the camera saw will be two distinct things, there might be some surprises when I watch the footage.

If this were a film class, I think it would be fun to explore the same short narrative storyline in a variety of locations, with a different cast, and other variations. This would be a good way to explore all of the challenges faced when filmmaking, even when the story (what many would view as the most important element,) stays the same.