Hailey Porth Weekly post part 1

Edward Burtynsky's Water exhibit is magnificent and breath taking. Addressing the oil spills in the Gulf Of Mexica, to the farm lands of Texas, to the overpopulated Spanish shores. Every photo in the exhibition is heart bracingly beautiful. The tension between photography and painting is expressed over and over again. The vivid colors that reveal how incredibly gorgeous our world is along with how we are destroying it. He is also able to convey this through the huge format the pictures are printed on and the vantage point he chooses to take each photo from. The chilling scenes of the oil spills because a reality and not something that we read about in the newspapers. The pictures take us and place us in the situation and call us to respond in some sort of way to the situation.

I am obsessed with this show and have already seen it three times since its opened. LOL. I think the thing that is most attractive to me is the vivid colors and the large formatted pictures. When I walked into that exhibit I was able to see something I have never seen before. Many times when we walk into galleries, maybe this is just me, but I get super cautious and super rigid because I have to respect the work and act mature and look at it in "that artistic way" but Burtynsky's photographs moved me in a way I have never felt before. I can't help but go back and look at the exhibition because overtime I go I see something new. I am able to spot a new thing he is trying to tell us, I notice a mountain in the place that I thought it was a valley. I am just thoroughly impressed and obsessed with this body of work and I can't wait for a few more weeks to go by and see how I feel about it then.

For me I just want my passion to show through my photography the way his passion literally beams through his work. I want to be able to express what I see through the photograph. I feel like so many times I get caught up in trying to recreate something, which no doubt is great. But instead of having y own voice I try so many times to create and image that has that artists' voice as well. I don't know if that makes sense but I want to capture the way I feel about a certain subject the way Burtynsky is able to in his photographs.