Hedy Bach

Submission Instructions:

Due: 5 Photographs, Due Feb 23rd.

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/request/hOyRPazUIT87VsFWBgLi

File Naming: James-Maher-1.jpg, etc.

File Size: 1200 pixels (or similar) at 72DPI

Title: No title

Surreal Challenge

Surrealism aims to revolutionize human experience. It balances a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams. The movement’s artists find magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional. At the core of their work is the willingness to challenge imposed values and norms, and a search for freedom.

The winter (for most of us) is a wonderful time to explore broad and conceptual ideas, along with the depths of our inner world. And I think the word surreal is, ironically, a strong grounding term to allow us all to explore these depths in any way we want.

Fewer people submitted to the previous challenge, which makes sense. For many of us, it was a busy time, the world unrelenting, getting more expensive, picking up speed and pushing on, getting burned out, a crazy election furthering the exhaustion.

This challenge, have some fun. Push yourself to submit. This challenge is meant to allow some of you to spend a lot of time on it, soul-searching, and enjoying the process of learning and exploring, while others can do it with two freezing winter walks around the block.

And given that it’s winter, I urge you to use some time to increase your photography and art education, which is such a great way to log off and have fun through burnout. To say it humorously, these are adult picture books, they’re meant to challenge our thoughts and inspire us, but are not difficult to consume mentally.

How is this different from dreamlike?

We’ve done a dreamlike challenge a couple of times during winter, and depending on how you approach it, it could be the same. Many of you will probably technically approach it similarly with blurry, evocative, loose photographs. Both terms (dreamlike and surreal) explore the idea of reality, our reality versus true reality. Dreamlike is slightly more personal—our wants, our needs, our views, our exploration into our mind on a subconscious level.

However, there are fundamental differences between the terms. Or depending on how you choose to approach it. The term surreal can be interpreted as creating a surreal world in your set of photographs, perhaps exploring your dreams, bringing us closer to how you feel deep down.

Or it can be interpreted as exploring reality and what is surreal about it, perhaps how our human nature has crafted our world in wild ways, masked in a structure of ‘normality.’ You can use straight, stark photos, sharp photographs that make people question why you found something so banal to be so fascinating.

There are countless ways to interpret this term, and I leave it up to you to enlighten us and broaden us to understand it better.

Constraints:

Thinking about your editing is very important for this challenge. With consistent editing, you can do a lot with very simple and easy photographs. Mess around and have fun with this. Editing is equally as important as what you choose to photograph, and can also broaden your imagination for what is interesting to share with others.

In the spirit of the previous challenge, we are using the same constraints. Your set of photographs should be in the same aspect ratio (although mixing horizontal and vertical is great), either color or B&W, and aim to achieve technical consistency as you would when crafting a project or book. Nothing like some constraints in a surreal challenge!

Freedom:

Photographs do not have to be straight photographs (for once in the Salon!)

Optional Poem:

If you feel, create a 2-10 line poem to go with your photographs. No more than 10 lines.

Here’s a poem that I recently created to put at the beginning of a book mockup I’m working on for my Glass City project. We’ll talk more about that on a hangout or I’ll do a post about it. I started with a longer poem and then reduced it to this.

My ambitions to be free.

If just for a minute.

(Three days a week would be nice.)

You can have the other four.

Which I enjoyed on its own, but it didn’t read well at the beginning of the mockup, so I reduced it to this.

My ambitions to be free.

If just for a minute.

This is a great quote defining Surreal from André Breton.

Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.

Ultimately I asked ChatGPT to help me explore this quote in more detail:

André Breton’s definition of Surrealism describes it as a process of unleashing the subconscious mind to express raw, unfiltered thought. The phrase “pure psychic automatism” refers to a creative method where the artist or writer abandons rational control, allowing ideas to flow freely from the subconscious without interference from logic or intention. This approach, inspired by Freud’s theories of the unconscious, seeks to reveal the deeper workings of the mind through techniques like automatic writing, drawing, or other spontaneous acts of creation. By bypassing the conscious mind, surrealists aimed to capture the “real functioning of thought,” unbound by structure or preconceived ideas.

Breton emphasizes that Surrealism operates outside the constraints of reason, aesthetic traditions, or moral considerations. The movement rejects traditional notions of beauty and societal expectations, instead embracing the strange, irrational, and dreamlike. Surrealist art and literature often feature bizarre juxtapositions, shocking imagery, or unconventional narratives, challenging the viewer or reader to engage with the subconscious. This definition underscores Surrealism’s revolutionary spirit, inviting artists to explore the untamed depths of creativity and uncover hidden truths that lie beyond the reach of conscious thought.

Finally, speaking of the surreal, I was able to create this inspiration list with ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, and my library in about 30 minutes. Amazing. All the links link to fantastic places to view their work easily.

Challenge #17: Concepts and Constraints

We live in a sea of photos devoid of each other, algorithmic photos and advertisements flying by in quick succession, all trying to one-up each other.

Spectacular images on their own just don’t affect us much anymore. And also, why does an image have to be spectacular?

Sequences, books, and built-out ideas are where the heart of artistic photography lies, and it’s the way to free us from this vortex.

Objective: This challenge is not about capturing a single, spectacular image. Instead, it’s about developing a concept, nurturing an idea, and expressing it through a carefully considered photographic sequence. Think of this as an exercise in active and thoughtful photography rather than passive snapping. Purposeful and slow.

Guidelines:

Create New Work: This challenge is about fresh perspectives. All submissions must be new photographs. For those unable to shoot due to current circumstances, old work can be considered, but only if it fits a new, thoughtfully developed idea. Message me if you need to go this route.

Focus on Storytelling: Submit a sequence of up to six photos. Whether you prefer black and white or color, the sequence should work together cohesively. Each image should add to the larger narrative or conceptual framework.

Consistent Formatting: Maintain consistency in your series. All images should share the same aspect ratio. You can mix vertical and horizontal, but no mixing square, 2:3, or 16:9 aspect ratios in the sequence. Do not mix color and B&W and make sure there is consistency to the look of the photos. Think about the idea of blur – a single blurry image looks like a mistake, while a series of six blurry photos suddenly feels like a world you created. The difference is in the consistency.

Conceptual Depth: Begin with an idea. Take your time to think about it. What are you trying to say? How can the images work together to tell a story or evoke a mood, feeling, or thought? Push your boundaries by crafting a meaningful series.

Title: You can submit your work with a title, or leave it as “Untitled.” Either way, the idea behind your images should shine through.

Submission Instructions:

Due: 6 Photographs, Due Nov 10th.

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/request/kiTSN9cWafWf5CXfwd9F

File Naming: James-Maher-title-1.jpg, etc.

File Size: 1200 pixels (or similar) wide at 72DPI

Below is an example of an idea. While obviously more than six photos here, you can see how the consistency helps to highlight the drudgery of a commute, while focusing us on both the cars and the details of the scenes surrounding the cars. It stops us and forces us to take a closer look on something we take for granted as being normal, and to show how abnormal it actually is.

Now in this case I used repetition of the same type of image to make the point, but I’d probably suggest for many of you to bring together more of a variety of images together.