Saturday, November 14, 2015

Betty Gowans - Weekly Artist Post 14

Irina Rozovsky


Rozovsky is shooting in natural light, in color, with possibly a digital camera. All the images from this series are square format. Image one has a soft contrast between the yellows and oranges in the sand and bags, and the grey blue in the sky and ocean. There are red suitcases amongst the pile of stuff in the sand that keeps interest in the scene, otherwise it might get lost amongst the sand. The tent and pile of suitcases are at a diagonal, going in the opposite direction of the horizon line. Image two is high in contrast. She is shooting from inside a dark room that has a hole in the wall, which gives us that high contrast, as she exposed for the outside light and not the darkly lit information in the room. The hole is approximately centered in the middle of the frame, but the bit of light coming in from the window makes the composition asymmetrical. In the last image, there's a wonderful contrast in color between the blue sky and orange herd of cattle coming down the street, with flecks of green from brush/trees to bounce the view back to the cattle. The line of cattle obstructs the view of the vanishing point. The image is split into thirds between the sky, cattle, and ground, with the cattle placed just below center.

The tent and suitcases in image one suggest a traveler, maybe someone without a permanent home, or a nomad. The similarities in color between the tent and sand suggest for me a sense of home, or belonging, though the presence of the tent and bags suggests impermanence and a state of wandering to find where this traveler fits into the world. Image two suggests maybe a home in ruins. To me, it also evokes a feeling of entrapment, or longing for brighter times - something quite powerful in Israel, where she is making the photographs for this series. Image three is a wonderfully weird moment where cattle are coming down the streets of the town she is in. This could possibly say something about our relationship as humans to the other beings that inhabit this earth, or nature in general. It may also say something about a country with paved roads, that still has issues with cattle roaming the streets.

For me, this is a really powerful series. It documents a place that some photographers may not want to photograph, but it captures it in a way that makes me think about how I view Israel - differently than what is documented in the news and in textbooks. She made pictures of tender moments as well as of things that reference Israel's history as a physical place, a Biblical/Religious place, and in politics.

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