Photography students reprise course with narrative gallery

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As Art Professor Andrew Ross, right, takes photos, Art student Danielle Green, left, discusses her photo narrative book that she created as part of Ross's photography class.

Photography students reunited on Feb. 1 to celebrate the opening of The Photo Narrative Book gallery, the culmination of a semester-long project.

The students goal was to create a body of work that showcased both ideas and styles in a format that would be presented as a book, all while being aware of sequencing and story-telling.

Each students’ narrative represented their unique story.

For senior Cari Wolfe, that narrative came in the form of a poem on roads. In her project, she wrote a poem describing the twists and turns that life takes.

“I always get a sense of peace when I go on a long drive,” Wolfe wrote. “This book is meant to be encouraging; no matter what you’re going though in life, no matter how rough life may seem, just keep going.”

One of the challenges that each student faced was turning an image-based project into a book.

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Library staff members Karen Montgomery and Christi Wayne examine the photography books created by Art Professor Andrew Ross's Fall Photography class. The class was exhibiting some of their work at the McConnell Library. 

Senior Danielle Green showed the process of the Van Dyke photography process – a brown-colored photographic print - from the original digital image to a digital negative, which resulted in the completed Van Dyke photograph. Green also included trial and error photographs in her narrative book.

“I thought it looked the best,” Green said. “I really wanted to take photographs of people and work on portraits.”

The varying processes were exemplified in senior Colton McConnell’s work. He did landscapes and portraits of Appalachia – but took all the photos using a large-format film camera before transferring the images to the digital realm. McConnell’s main image was a photograph of the Cascade Falls in Pembroke, Virginia.

“I thought it was a great way to capture images with extraordinary detail,” McConnell said.

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Art student Allecia Taylor discusses her work which she published in a photography books as part of a Fall Art class with Art Professor Andrew Ross.

Another student in the course took a different approach – one that involved dismantling a photograph to a basic state. Senior Cat Baker de-constructed photographs by destroying them. Baker took the left-over pigments and paper and scratched and burned the remnants to find out if the leftovers pieces still made a photograph.

Senior Dimi Drivas’ book “Anonymous” incorporated deeper shadows into her work. While still a book, Drivas presented her narrative in a film-like manner. Each photograph was taken in the style of a cinematic still.

The Photo Narrative Gallery, which includes these works and more, is on display in the McConnell Library event space until March 3. For a full list of CVPA events, visit the CVPA event calendar.

Feb 9, 2017
Max Esterhuizen
(540) 831-7749
westerhuizen@radford.edu