Reading #1 : Equivalence: The Perennial Trend by Minor White

I really liked this article because I feel like I can relate to it. It is very hard to set yourself apart from every other photographer..  especially now while in school. It is very easy to find photographs that you feel are "equivalent" to something you have seen before. 

I felt like this sentence made me understand what equivalence means in regards to this article the best: "If the individual viewer realizes that for him what he sees in a picture corresponds to something within himself—that is, the photograph mirrors something in himself—then his experience is some degree of Equivalence. (At least such is a small part of our present definition.)" 

I really liked where the article talked about why we remember images.  It explains that we only remember the images that we want to remember. We either remember them because we simply "love it" or dislike it.  These are those images that will always have an effect on you. When you see it, you have an immediate reaction, either love it or don't. 

It also explains how it can make us realize something about ourselves or maybe the reader has never been quite the same after looking at a certain image.  This happened to me after I started looking at abstract photography. I became very interested in this concept. It was after I saw some of John Coplans abstract photography of the figure.  I wanted to take his idea but do it in a different way and put my own emotion and feeling into it.  This is why I emulated John Coplan last semester. 

After reading this article it really made me think, "How can us photographers set ourselves apart" I think its really important while photographing to always put your OWN emotion and feeling into the way you are taking a photograph. You might get an  idea from someone else or  seen it before, but you can always take your own stance on it. Everyone has a different viewpoint or understanding of something so it is important to put that into your work and I will make more of an effort to do that after reading this article!

One image stuck out to me after reading this article and its because I remember seeing this picture for the first time... Julie had shown it to me, when I was trying to figure out what to do for my self portrait project a couple of semesters ago in photo workshop. After seeing this image, I loved it. It has always stuck in the back of my head. I tried doing something like it, for my self portraits, but it didn't have the same feeling. I felt they were not equivalent. I put my emotion and feeling into my images and made them a little different. In my photograph it was not about the nude figure but instead about the environment I was in and my reflection. I don't feel mine were as successful as Francesca, but I feel like if I took it further I could get something great out of it! 

Francesca Woodman