Ryan’s wordpress site, bowandarrowphoto.wordpress.com, is an eye-catching experience. From the bold theme, to the clean font, it stands out amongst the other wordpress photography blogs. I like the easy navigation and focus on images as opposed to text.
The content Ryan has put on his site has a very bold style. His art has a lot of punch. This shows his commitment to his vision and pushing creative boundaries. An example of his bold style is the Editing Logos and Portrait assignment and Logo Assignment. Both assignments feature dark colours and big shapes. I like the use of black, red and blue. The original Logo Assignment is really well done. I love the PacMan logo he created. It reminds me of an Early Modern graphic design style. This is one of my personal favourite styles because of its minimalistic approach.
We discussed in class whether photos can anesthetize or serve as a call to action. For the social documentary project, Ryan photographed photos that demonstrated his relationship. He also touched base on mental illness. He photographed art made by his boyfriend as well as some pill bottles. These photos serve as both aesthetically interesting as well as a call to action. Viewers understand that Ryan is not using the mental illness references as a way of appropriation but in fact a reflection of life with a mental illness.
For the Logo Assignment, Ryan recreated his face. The denotated meaning of it is that it is a face. The viewer sees a face, nose, round eyes, a mouth, beard and hat. The beard and glasses make Ryan look like a really chill and laid back kind of guy. Hats in combination with a beard tend to give the appearance of a laid back attitude. Scruff can indicate that they don’t really care about shaving or simply just like having a beard. Hats also have a casual attitude. People wear them when they don’t want to bother with their hair, are having a bad hair day or simply like hats. It is easy to conclude that both beards and hats have a relaxed conotated meaning and that this is reflected in Ryan’s self portrait.
His Light Archive piece has a fantastical conotated meaning. Both pictures have a lot of lights, blue and pink tones. These colours tend to have fantastical associations to it. This may be because types of colours are often seen in children’s books like Alice in Wonderland.
The glittery lights in the second Light Archive show this fantastical theme once again. Glittery lights tend to have an association with mysticism. Maybe it’s because they are like twinkly stars. Once again, the fantasy theme is seen in the archive pieces.
Ryan’s Silhouette pieces are also really interesting. He was able to capture the twists and turns in the dog’s body. The illustrated boy features many sharp lines and angles. The woman with duck lips is a nice comedic touch. He added a lot of detail to the fair and the side of the face.
Ryan’s bold style is seen again in his Week 2 Assignment. He really transformed the celebrity faces to make them uber wacky and weird. The celebrities he chose are even pushing the boundaries. He gave Ashton Kutcher a third eye. This has a conotated meaning of new age, insight and balance. He also turned Michael Cera into a funky faceless collage. The faceless image has a literal/denonated meaning of no face. The conotated meaning is identity-less. However, we all still know it’s Michael Cera.
All in all, Ryan’s site is a fearless and original mix of art. He has a good variation of meaningful art pieces (such as his social documentary piece) to fun and comedic pieces (celebrity warp activity, memes and dodge and burn exercise). Job well done, pal!
Michelle C's Photography 