Mark Davis Senior Portfolio 2010: Graduate School Application

The university I chose for the graduate school application is Rochester Institute of Technology. I actually considering applying here for my bachelor degree, but in the end did not. My hometown is very close to Rochester and some of my family still lives around there. I very much miss upstate New York. Their program is usually ranked pretty high for the master of fine arts programs. According to USNews, it was ranked at number three as a tie with Rhode Island School of Design. I am interested in the program because it is “where the arts and technology collide.” Not only do I want to better my understanding of creating conceptual art, but I think it would be a great opportunity to learn new forms of technology to incorporate into the art making process. A more scientific approach to my process would be incredibly interesting. Also much of the work I found from the faculty and current students really furthered my want to attend this university.

Faculty of Interest

MINOR WHITE

Although he was only a professor at RIT from 1956-1964, Minor White is still a big selling point for me. I fell in love with his images early on and still think they are remarkable.

“(born July 9, 1908, Minneapolis, Minn., U.S—died June 24, 1976, Cambridge, Mass.) U.S. photographer and editor. He began to photograph seriously in 1938 when he went to work for the Works Progress Administration. In 1946 he studied with Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglitz before moving to San Francisco, where he worked closely with Ansel Adams. He succeeded Adams as head of the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts and later taught at MIT. He founded and edited (1952–76) the photography magazine Aperture and also edited Image (1953–57). His efforts to extend photography's range of expression made him one of the century's most influential photographers.”

Barn and Clouds, in the Vicinity of Naples and Dansville, New York, 1955

Peeled Paint, Rochester, 1959

Rochester, 1954

Snow on Garage Door, Rochester, 1960

No print sizes given.

Taken from http://www.masters-of-photography.com/W/white/white.html
PATTI AMBROGI

I am interested in her incorporation of technology and moving image within her works.

“Patti Ambrogi is an Associate Professor of Photography at RIT where she teaches a series of courses that explore the descriptions that surround photography including The Photograph and the Moving Image, Art and Censorship, Art and Principled Positions, and Women and Visual Imaging. She has worked for a number of years on the creation and development of The Media Cafe, where photo students explore these new territories of picture making with time-based media and confront the inherent shifts in meaning and interpretation. Ambrogi has also established a time-based video and sound collection to support this work which is housed in the Wallace Memorial Library. Patti Ambrogi is the recipient of various grants for her artwork and awards including the Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching.”

Hillary Clinton Campaigns

Sarah Palin Live from Saturday Night

Martha

Thats for Him to Answer...

Images taken from her series Cover Girls.

"The Cover Girls are electronic paintings. They are constructed with interior images and maps in serial structures. Frames of the original media are recaptured and recreated in a set of imaged tiles. The frames are sequenced back into movie clips."

Other Interesting Faculty Work:

Angela Kelly’s Domestic Discomfort

http://angelakellyphoto.com/domesticdiscomfort1.html

Carla William’s “It’s What We’ve Always Called It” and “How To Read Character”

http://carlagirl.net/photowork/?p=4

http://carlagirl.net/photowork/?p=48

Oscar Palacio’s Unfamiliar Territory

http://www.oscarpalacio.net/unfamiliar_territory/unfamiliar_territory.html

Students of Interest

Misha Tulek

“It all begin in 1998. In the summer of that same year, I volunteered with a research team from the Smithsonian Institute to study Katydids in Northeastern Peru. I naively borrowed my little sister’s point-and-shoot camera to document my adventures. Upon my return, I was heartbroken by the results of my photographs. The images I had taken had in no way captured the pure majesty of the jungle I had seen with my own eyes. However, despite the poor quality of these photos, my family and friends still enjoyed the images. Regardless of the images, it was a powerful experience in which I learned the incredible ability of photography to communicate the essence of ideas and places. And so, my initial desires to photograph came from a simple need to better communicate the wonder, beauty, and majesty of life as I experienced it. What seems like a short while ago has turned into nearly a decade of photographic study. If I were to summarize the course of this study, I would have to borrow the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who famously wrote in his essay on self-reliance, “the voyage of the best ship is the zig-zag line of a hundred tacks.” Likewise my photographic voyage has been a journey of many tacks. From attending night school in photography, to working at a small town photo store, to long hours pouring over photography books, to religiously attending photo exhibits in museums, to working for respected photographers such as James Nachtwey, to saving every penny to realize my own projects, my course of study has been an organic and unconventional one- a self tailored education, of serendipity, mixed with push, and hard work.

I cannot count the lonely moments, which I have spent looking at photographs in a museum, and everything goes still; it’s just me and the photograph. The image has captured me. And all I need is that moment for the photograph to teach me how to see. What do I learn to see? I learn how to render mercy. I learn how to hope. I learn how to hate, and then forgive. I learn how to be an artist. But most importantly, in learning how to see, I also learn how to communicate-to communicate the wonder, beauty, and majesty of life, even if it’s in a landfill.

The road has been demanding and long. However, on a daily basis I seek to improve my photography, as a means of expression, a tool for peace, and a profession to live by.”