Megan E. Dunbar

This week I am featuring Megan E. Dunbar. I can easily say she was on campus everyday this semester either developing her own color film, or printing in the color darkroom. Both of these are quite impressive seeing that we don't have a color processing machine and I have yet to see any other color darkroom prints come out of that building. This project, entitled Untitled Persons, is a series of self portraits she did for her Fall 2010 senior thesis at Montana State University. Megan built about 15 free standing light boxes to display these images at the show, the images were backlit in the box.

Untitled Persons

First impressions often lead to stereotyping. Although the term "stereotype" is usually negative, stereotypes are unfortunately an evolving and integral aspect to civilization. Untitled Persons is a visual study of the human condition aimed at challenging traditional stereotypes that place people into certain categories.

Given the current advances in image-based technology, which makes truth more malleable, I have chosen a more straightforward technique, the pinhole camera, to create these fictional characters. I enjoy this simple, quiet method of picture making that goes back to the origins of photography when truth and photographs were one and the same.

www.meganedunbar.com

Jace Becker

I was able to catch up with Jace Becker before he left on a month long trip to Thailand. This body of work, entitled A Selfsame Well, was his senior capstone project at Montana State University for the Fall 2010 semester. It is a beautiful body of work consisting of manipulated darkroom prints digitally montaged into a final image. The resulting series is a deep and thought provoking body of work that provides a window into the artists thoughts and feelings.

Due to a recent injury, I have been forced to refrain from many of the everyday activities that I have taken for granted. I was once told that in the absence of one’s activities, one finds their true character. With the veil of confidence and distraction temporarily stripped away from me, I have discovered a well of insecurity and flawed conceptions of self. A Selfsame Well is an exploration into such feelings of desolation and the fragility of identity. Through the process of introspection one risks the possibility of losing oneself completely, however, it is only through the struggle to tolerate the intolerable that one keeps open to the possibility of transformation and rebirth. Just as I am fashioning these attributes of my personality, I am physically replicating the manifestations of these emotions through my imagery. I embark on this journey with the intent of better understanding my own character, but as Steinbeck once wrote, “I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”

Have a great trip Jace!

Welcome to Forced Development

Forced Development is a blog dedicated to showing cohesive bodies of work being made by photo students. This blog is intended to be a place where photography students will be able to show the photographs they worked hard on over the semester, and to be able to explain the ideas behind the images. Thank you for visiting Forced Development!