How Audience and Purpose Influence Thinking Process

Yixuan Liu

English 201

Zack De Piero

Aug. 6 2015

How Audience and Purpose Influence Thinking Process

“Do you think a photographer needs a philosophy to take pictures?” I asked Chuck Place during the beginning of the interview,  who is an editorial food photographer in Santa Barbara. He believes that “having a belief in making pictures will not only help photographer to know what they are doing, will also help their audiences to know what they are looking at”. A philosophy acts as an artist’s statement that speaks for the artist. It is usually created after thoughtful thinking and countless experiments. The reason of asking this question is because all the professionals tend to have their purpose to complete an idea with some specific information. Visual and verbal works are produced for people to think. In order to evoke reader’s emotional response, a quality pre-production should be done with the analysis of one’s targeted audience and purpose. Therefore, having a clear understanding of targeted audience and specific purpose for work- thinking, idea building, accomplishing project and final presentation -will result in making people think in first order thinking, which is a quicker and more simple way of thinking to understand the idea. On the other hand, same question has been asked to Olivia Parker, a fine art still life photographer in Boston. She believes that “people have their own circle of meaning when they are studying my work”. In this case, Olivia allows her audience to have their own interpretation instead of telling them what is her pictures really about. Therefore, Olivia’s style of making art affect people to think in the second order thinking which is a more complicated and thoughtful thinking. Therefore, the different result in thinking order may influenced by  whether the photographer has her/him targeted audience and specific purpose or not before they take the pictures.

Every choices we made are either being all-around thinking or spontaneous. There are two thinking processes that function in two completely different ways to make people think. According to Elbow, “first order thinking is a fast, non strive for conscious or control and a relax vigilance”(Elbow). This is how Chuck Place’s editorial food photography about- tasty food and beautiful restaurants, along with food culture and travel photos. Clearly, Chuck thinks about his purpose and audience when producing his work- to present a good-looking food picture of a plate of chef’s special with a Martini in a well decorated restaurant environment, or a simple clean dish of a desert on a color contrast table cloth. These pictures will be published in Bon Appetit Magazine to attract readers to go and serve at that restaurant.

Effectively understanding the purpose and audience will sufficiently improve the quality of one’s work. Before Chuck goes to a restaurant to shot food, he has the responsibility to study the environment, lighting, and the dishes they have in order to produce appropriate final image. Chuck produces specific work for publications and clients that allow them to include pictures in the article or in a magazine. According to Dirk, “Picking up a text, readers not only classify it and expect a certain form, but also make assumptions about the text’s purposes, its subject matter, it’s writer, and it's expected reader” (Devitt, Writing 12). In real life, how many seconds do you stop on a picture in a magazine? Rarely longer than 3 second. Therefore, when the readers are flipping through a magazine, they look at the wonderful food pictures and do not even need to read the article to get the idea what kind of food this restaurant is serving. Chuck Place’s clear photographs make the reader think without effort- think in first order thinking- they just want the food to be in front of them. This is one of the reasons how he had made several publications about tourist books and thousands of food related pictures.

Chuck claims that [he] also blogs to keep people updated about who [he is] and what [does he does]. According to <Crafting Messages for Electronic Media>, “identify an audience that is broad enough to justify the efforts and  narrow enough to have common interests. Therefore, audience [will] relate to their fresh approach and often build closer emotional bonds with the blogger as a result” (Ch7). Expressing the blogger’s personal feeling in a blog may bring reader into the atmosphere you created. Chuck expresses that, “I tried to keep my blogs easy to understand. I put my experience of eating the food that I just photographed and how I was being treated in the restaurant. I think this not only builds a reputation of the restaurant but also my pictures”. In this case, Chuck uses his own writing skills to help people further understand the fact behind the pictures- allowing the audience to think in first order thinking without conscious. For example, Chuck further explains in his blog <Granada Bistro> mentions about a recent shot in a restaurant, “as far as I’m concerned, however, a good meal is much more than fuel for our bodies. It’s relaxing, it’s interesting and it’s an adventure. The cost is actually reasonable when you consider that you are sampling a particular chef’s creative expression” (Granada Bistro). A simple journal of a shooting experience may evoke the desire of having the food from his audience.

However, second order thinking do exist in marketing in photography. As Chuck proclaims that “Photography is not only about taking picture, there is a significant part takes place in marketing when you could sell your work in a better price- writing a treatment”. According to <Rhetorical Anlysis>, “most arguments are composed with specific audiences in mind, and their success depens, in part on how well their strategies, content, tone, and language meet the expectations of that audience” (Everything’s). In this case, Writing a treatment to explain your intention in the creation of the photo with regard to concept and communication will be the best example. A treatment involves details of what you will create the image, and more importantly, why you are creating this image. You also need to include the concept description and purpose in the treatment along with detail of the emotional response you want to achieve from the audience. A treatment is where audience, purpose, first order thinking and second order thinking all occur both in reading and writing. This is a strong relationship between having a clear picture of what you are doing and how well it will be. In this way, Chuck makes his own photography business goes smoothly and successfully as he clearly understand who he is presenting to and why is it significant to present.  

On the other hand, “second order thinking is a slow, thoughtful and a controlled thinking process”, according to Elbow. We may think and consciously relate the story to ourselves when reading an article or looking at a picture. With a bachelor of History of Art in Wellesley College, Olivia has deeply been influenced with every piece of artwork in the past and even from different culture. Being as a Still Life Fine Art photographer, her photography towards to the aesthetic world which makes people pause, stop and think. “Art communicates with people differently”,  this is how Olivia insists on making art for decades and decades. The most significant difference between Editorial Food Photography and Fine Art Still Life Photography is the involving of thinking process. A conceptual Fine Art masterpieces will be presented in a gallery for people to study and think- here is where second order thinking takes place.

In Fine Art Still Life Photography, when Olivia is producing her work, it is a different way than any other photographers who work with Art directors or clients and they already have their own ideas and shot list. Olivia notes, “while we are working on visual images occurs in the realm of visual thinking and it can’t necessarily be translated into the verbal. I tend to switch back and forth between a visual-intuitive mode and an editorial-verbal mode”. By this means, Olivia would walk around in her store room and poked around her collected objects. She would pick up one thing and then observed, first order thinking about how could [I] make this dull thing active. And then, second order thinking went to make a scratch, talked to herself , think about possible ways to make it alive. Further, she would think verbally and visually back and forth to get the essential idea. For Olivia, writing will be used after she has done with her work- to note down the idea and feeling that she had when produced this series of work. Then how is Olivia tells story with her pictures? I believe when Olivia is producing her works, there is a conceptual idea behind every series of her art. Olivia deeply understands how she is as an artists and how to express communication through her art. She is outstanding.

However, different from Chuck Place, Olivia is a vicarious watcher who is carefully observing her surrounding environment for a potential purpose. She is always ready to be inspired by letting her brain go free. One thing that Olivia does to help her think and create is by drawing. She has been taking painting and drawing classes; due to her childhood, her nanny always took her to museum and gallery. All the paintings in her memory built up a visual world to support her Fine Art Still Life Photography. During the interview, I had a mind blowing when Olivia tells me that she often work on her own and she produces art in the way she sees the object. This is unusual. So I carefully asked, “does this mean you are not intend to have your work communicate with people or to express your thoughts?” I found this question on her website and I asked her again in the interview. She clearly restates her thought from the essay she wrote once again.  

“At first I thought that good work had to communicate my exact ideas to an audience. Wrong. I now know that every piece of art will communicate with each person in its audience in a different way. Each one of us has an accumulated frame of reference that I call a circle of meaning”, she paused and said, “My circle and your circle are not likely to overlap perfectly. Both of us will have private knowledge that remains outside the common area of overlap, as well as the overlapped area where communication takes place”, Olivia elaborates her belief in this answer. I strongly agree with her standpoint that folk looks at pictures differently. Actually, people may have a totally different interpretation of today’s news,  a newly released movie and even a worldwide policy. Carrying all conscious, specific and directed thinking, Olivia embraces her belief into making Fine Art Photography where her works are being established in galleries for people to stop, observe, and think- this is also where second order thinking takes place. Even Olivia does not have a targeted audience, she has more freedom to make art which could have different meanings to different kinds of people. To her, it is a very interesting purpose to just hear people with opposite opinions on a single picture that she created. Does not having a targeted audience matters to Olivia? The answer is already stated.

         As I mentioned before, Chuck spent most of his time dealing with clients but Olivia is dealing with galleries- two completely different thinking and writing process is involved lead a same way to today’s success. As an artist, Olivia Parker always believes that “the more you work, the more likely you will develop your own way of thinking, and own way of styling. So, keep photographing”. Same philosophy applies to every job in the world- persistence is victory. Even if a photographer tend to photograph without having a potential audience, there is chance that your works will communicate with the reader in their own way- the second order thinking. Or, like Chuck Place, understanding the importance of purpose and audience will decide the quality of your work and also influence the reader to think in the first order thinking.

Citation

Ch 7 - Crafting Messages for Electronic Media

Chuck Place Photograophy Website: http://chuckplacephotography.com

Chuck Place Blog Website: https://chuckplacephotography.wordpress.com

Devitt, Amy J. “Generalizing About Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept.” College Composition and Communication 44.4 (1993): 573–86. Print.

Elbow, Peter. Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching. New York: Oxford U Oress, 1986.

Eveything’s an Argument Ch6 - Rhetorical Anlysis

Granada Bistro, San Luis Obispo

Kerry, Dirk, Lowe Charles and, Pavel Zemliansky. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor, 2010. Navigating Genres. Writing Spaces, 2010. Web. 6 Aug. 2015. http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/dirk--navigating-genres.pdf.

Interview with Chuck Place and Olivia Parker

Olivia Essay Website: http://oliviaparker.com/blog/?page_id=9

Second Draft for The Paper

 Yixuan Liu

English 201

Zack Depiero

July.27 2015

Why Audience and Purpose in Photography?

“Do you think a photographer needs a philosophy to take pictures?” I asked Olivia Parker during the end of the interview. When photographers and writers are doing their job, they tend to have their own purpose to relate every specific information in order to complete an idea. For writer, this is a complicated and time consuming process to carefully thinking so that the final writing evokes reader’s emotional response. So do photographers. Visual works are producing for people to think.  In this case, after all writing is done and all pictures are framed, it is time for their targeted audience to review their works to decide the masterpiece. But, it’s having a clear purpose and targeted audience do help you in producing masterpiece? In my opinion, having your targeted audience and a clear purpose to work may effectively benefit the thinking process, idea building, and accomplishing job in photography and writing field. Whether or not you are clear about who you are communicating with, audience would experience the first order and second order thinking in a second.

Thanks to Chuck Place and Olivia Parker who kindly offering me the opportunity to interview them. They are two totally different style photographers who I like in the still life and tabletop photography. Their words strongly support this paper. 

Chuck Place’s photography is more about pictures of tasty food and beautiful restaurants, with some food culture and travel photos. Clearly, Chuck thinks about his purpose and audience when producing his work- presenting a good-looking food picture to attract clients to work with him and, to make customers want to serve that food. Because of that, Chuck is popular with food photography in Santa Barbara as well as other photographic fields worldwide. 

On the other side, the experience of talking with Olivia makes me feel art is everything for her. With a bachelor of History of Art, Olivia has deeply been influenced with every piece of artwork in the past and even from different culture. Being as a Still Life Fine Art photographer, her photography is more likely towards to the aesthetic world which makes people think . She is living in her own world for 35 years that her ideas are so strong, no one declines on her. Art communicates with people differently, this is how Olivia insists on making art for decades and decades.

Every choices we made were either being all-around thinking or spontaneous.There are two thinking processes that function in two completely different ways to make people think. According to Elbow, first order thinking is a fast, non strive for conscious or control and a relax vigilance. However, second order thinking is a slow, thoughtful and a controlled thinking process. In this case, that means when we are reading an article or looking at a picture, we are are thinking and consciously relates the story to ourselves. Or, we just quickly glance through without picking up the main idea. In the photography and writing condition, whether or not you have a clear targeted audience and purpose, the reader may experience one of these thinking processes. 

Effectively understanding the purpose and audience of each of the assignments, Chuck produces specific work for publications and clients that allow the reader to think without effort- they want the food to be in front of them. This is one of the reasons how he had made several publications about tourist books and thousands of food related pictures. Chuck claims that [he] also blogs to keep people updated about who [he is] and what [does he does]. According to <Crafting Messages for Electronic Media>, “identify an audience that is broad enough to justify the efforts and  narrow enough to have common interests. Therefore, audience [will] relate to their fresh approach and often build closer emotion bonds with the blogger as a result” (Ch7).  Chuck also expresses that, I tried to keep my blogs easy to understand. I put my experience of eating the food that I just photographed and how I was being treated in the restaurant. I think this not only builds a reputation of the restaurant but also my pictures. In this case, Chuck uses his own writing skills to help people further understand the fact behind the pictures- allowing the  audience to think in first order thinking without conscious. For example, Chuck explains in his blog about a recent shot in a restaurant, “as far as I’m concerned, however, a good meal is much more than fuel for our bodies. It’s relaxing, it’s interesting and it’s an adventure. The cost is actually reasonable when you consider that you are sampling a particular chef’s creative expression” (Granada Bistro). A simple journal of a shooting experience may evoke the desire of having the food from his audience. 

However, different from Chuck Place, Olivia is a vicarious watcher who is carefully observing her surrounding environment for a potential purpose. She is always ready to be inspired by letting her brain go free. One thing that Olivia does to help her think and create is by drawing. She has been taking painting and drawing classes; due to her childhood, her nanny always took her to museum and gallery. All the paints in her memory built up a visual world to support her fine art and still life photography, so she just scratches her ideas out. “I am just letting my thoughts fly” she explains. Then I carefully asked, “does this mean you are not intend to have your work communicate with people or to express your thoughts?” 

“At first I thought that good work had to communicate my exact ideas to an audience. Wrong. I now know that every piece of art will communicate with each person in its audience in a different way. Each one of us has an accumulated frame of reference that I call a circle of meaning”, she paused and said, “My circle and your circle are not likely to overlap perfectly. Both of us will have private knowledge that remains outside the common area of overlap, as well as the overlapped area where communication takes place”, Olivia elaborates her thoughtful thinking on her essay as well as telling me her belief. I strongly agree with her standpoint that folk looks at pictures differently. Actually, people may have a totally different interpretation of today’s news,  a newly released movie and even a worldwide policy. Carrying all conscious, specific and directed thinking, Olivia embraces her belief into making Fine Art Photography where her works are being established in galleries for people to stop, observe, and think- this is also where second order thinking takes place. Even Olivia does not have a targeted audience, she has more freedom to make art which could have different meanings to different kinds of people. To her, it is a very interesting purpose to just hear people with opposite opinions on a single picture that she created. Does not having a targeted audience matters to Olivia? The answer is already stated.

As I mentioned before, Chuck spent most of his time dealing with clients but Olivia is dealing with galleries- two completely different thinking and writing process is involved. Chuck proclaims that “Photography is not only about taking picture, there is a significant part takes place in marketing when you could sell your work in a better price- writing a treatment”. Writing a treatment to explain your intention in the creation of the photo with regard to concept and communication. It involves details of what you will create the image, and more importantly, why you are creating this image. You also need to include the concept description and purpose in the treatment along with detail of the emotional response you want to achieve from the audience. A treatment is where audience, purpose, first order thinking and second order thinking all occur both in reading and writing. This is a strong relationship between having a clear picture of what you are doing and how well it will be. In this way, Chuck makes his own photography business goes smoothly and successfully as he clearly understand who he is presenting to and why is it significant to present.  _____Add Reading materials about Purpose_______

In Fine Art Still Life Photography, when Olivia is producing her work, it is a different way than any other photographers who work with Art directors or clients and they already have their own ideas and shot list. Olivia notes, “while we are working on visual images occurs in the realm of visual thinking and it can’t necessarily be translated into the verbal. I tend to switch back and forth between a visual-intuitive mode and an editorial-verbal mode”. By this means, Olivia would walk around in her stored room and poked around her collected objects. She would pick up one thing and then observed, first order thinking about how could [I] make this dull thing active. And then, second order thinking went to make a scratch, talked to herself , think about possible ways to make it alive. Further, she would think verbally and visually back and forth to get the essential idea. For Olivia, writing will be used after she has done with her work- to note down the idea and feeling that she had when produced this series of work. Then how is Olivia tells story with her pictures? I believe when Olivia is producing her works, there is a conceptual idea behind every series of her art. Olivia deeply understands how she is as an artists and how to express communication through her art. She is outstanding.

          As an artist, Olivia Parker always believes that the more you work, the more likely you will develop your own way of thinking, and own way of styling. So, keep photographing. Same philosophy applies to writing. Even if you tend to write or photographs without having a potential audience, there is chance that your works will communicate with the reader in their own way- involving the second order thinking. Or, like Chuck Place, understanding the importance of purpose and audience will decide the quality of your work. 

Citation

Interview with Chuck Place and Olivia Parker

Chuck Place Photograohy Website: http://chuckplacephotography.com

Chuck Place Blog Website: https://chuckplacephotography.wordpress.com

Olivia Essay Website: http://oliviaparker.com/blog/?page_id=9

Elbow, Peter. Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching. New York: Oxford U Oress, 1986.

Ch 7 - Crafting Messages for Electronic Media

Granada Bistro, San Luis Obispo

First Draft for The Paper

Yixuan Liu

English 201

Zack Depiero

July.16 2015

Interesting Thinking World in Photography

Art is everything for me. This is how I feel when talking with Olivia. To me, she is living in her own world that no one could interfere her. She has been in still life photography for 35 years with a self-taught lighting experience. According to Olivia, she would prefer to work with natural light than using strobe lights and hot lights. Her way of using window light are shown in a lot of her glasses where you could see huge window in all sides of her studio. 

With the bachelor of History of Art, Olivia is being influenced deeply with every piece of artwork in the past and even from different culture. She has been to China couple times and she was stunning by the architecture that China had which were built hundred years ago. To Olivia, she is a vicarious watcher who is carefully observing all her surrounding environment potential element. She is always ready to be inspired. One thing that Olivia does to help her think and create idea is by drawing. She has been taking painting and drawing classes and due to her childhood, her nanny always took her to museum and gallery, Olivia scratches her ideas out and then will produce them in the way she wanted to. 

When photographers and writers are doing their work, they tend to have their own purpose to produce each piece and then put them together to complete the idea. For writer, is a complicated and time consuming process to related every piece of writing and bond then well together in order to relate audience with their book. So do photographers. In this case, after all writing is done and all pictures are framed, it is time for their targeted audience to give comments on. Now is the most important point to decide whether or not, your work is good. It is interesting to hear two different voices: Olivia Parker do not have targeted audience and all she is doing is for Art. However, on the other side, Chuck Place has clearly audience- ordinary people who will have services in the restaurant as well as his potential clients. 

Chuck Place’s food photography is more about tasty food photos and beautiful restaurant pictures. Plus some food culture and travel photos. So clearly, Chuck has his own purpose and audience when he was producing his works, which makes his work way more easier when you know who you audience are. And this is one of the reasons how he made several publications about tourist books. According to Chuck, publishing a book is not a easy case. At first, as a photographer, you would need to gather with the writers to generate the ideas. And then, you would bring to publication to get feedback. After the idea of the book is solid, the writer would give Chuck a list of pictures that he need to produce about this tourist location and the Chuck will go and shot them. Before the shooting, when he is doing his pre-production, Chuck has to do some research about the location, people, culture and good spot to shot. And then, he has to think how to draw people’s interest in pictures and how will pictures help to extend the feeling of writing. Finally, all maters is interested or not. 

I just realized I interviewed two totally different genre’s photography which make this essay more interesting to write about, and at the same time, harder. 

As mentioned before, Olivia Parker is a Fine Art photographer who is all about Art. Her works are more towards the aesthetic world and is less related to the general people. Therefore, when Olivia is producing her work, it is a different way then photographers who work with Art directors or clients who already have their own ideas and shot list. Olivia will walk around her stored room and poked around her collected objects. She will pick up one thing and then observe, 1st order thinking to think how could I make this dull thing active. And then, 2nd order thinking, make a scratch, talk to her and then think more about possible ways to make it look good. Further, she will think verbally and visually back and forth to get the essential idea. For Olivia, writing will be used after she is done with her work. To note down the idea and feeling that she had to produce this series of work. For example, in her essay about “The Eye’s Mind”, she said “She is exploring the relationship between visual and verbal thinking”. Here is a good point to start develop the idea.  

Individually talking about the uses of 1st order thinking and 2nd order thinking, which are being used, in Olivia and Chuck’s everyday life and photography. 

Since Chuck is dealing with Clients and Olivia is dealing with gallery, they have two completely different thinking and writing process involved. 

Olivia do not have specific audience. This helps her to focus on producing her own feeling of the work a lot. Because she does not have targeted audience, she has more freedom to make art which could have different meaning related to different kinds of audience. She thinks everybody looks picture differently. Why I made pictures. What I was thinking about. And then she thinks maybe put some words that audience will respond better. To her, it is very interesting to hear people have very different opinions on single pictures. Olivia always believe that the more you work, the more likely you will develop your own way of thinking own way of styling. Therefore, just keep photographing. Being as a visual learner, visual art like painting, sculpture helped Olivia to learn a lot- compose, and color. The more you look, the more impression it will have on you. Being as a verbal thinker, Olivia reads History of Art and she think that also add the range of your knowledge. No harm. 

Chuck Place do blog post to keep people updated about what he is doing. 

Serious Writing Process

It is interesting to read realize all the information  I thought about photography is the same as writing. In commercial/fine art photography, the post-production is to know who are your audiences, how to shot ideal product to make people want to buy them , and how do you achieve your audience. 

Break into little pieces. 

Commercial photography usually goes straightforward to the point. Art directors and photographers have a clear-targeted audience and they also have strategies to sell the products. See the pictures below, these are the shots for a medicine that inform us to use it when our knees hurt or some sore like that. And their main targeted audience is older people. Just like writing, you should know whom are you writing to. What will audience already knew about the information you are putting on? And if readers do not get it, how much time should they dedicate to understand your point? Should you include a quote, an article, an essay or a news to explain your point? Is your purpose of every piece of writing clear- to educate, to entertain, to persuade, to raise awareness for call to action- which means you know you are writing for your audience. Audience and purpose analysis are just as important as having the right ingredients for baking. 

Next comes to building credibility through rhetorical analysis- the most important element in a series of writing. To show respect to your audiences. Before achieving that, you should put efforts onto writing itself.

Rhetorical analysis is a big range of information that we should consider while writing. I could only example few of them so I will try to explain well. Firstly, identifying all separate arguments and examine the relationships among them. Do they solidly link? Are they consistently?  

After that, looking for the quality of the information you are working on. What kind of data is preferred as evidence? How are such data gathered and presented? Evidence from books in library are more accurate and creditable than online websites. On the other hand, evidences could also be searched by Advanced research on Google Scholar. Just be sure that you know what you are looking for. And, make sure how accurate the information are. You could also have interview with related person to get one-hand, non-manipulated information. 

We are almost there.

Last thing about rhetorical analysis that I could think about is the writing style, which could bring the stance between writer and audience closer and closer. A writer’s style could be sentence length, alliteration, parallelism and the look of the writing can support the message that it carries. 

After all, a well-done writing should translate ideas clearly, effectively and nicely. A good series of photo should tell stories and let people to experience with it.  

Images via Arik Almas 

http://www.erikalmas.com/

Crafting Message For Electronic Media

The development of technology has been helped each of us to get assignments done in an efficient way. This chapter specifically demonstrates how to craft message through blog and email to achieve different targets. Doing a consistently blog activity needs patience and insistence. Therefore, do not blog without a clear plan. A plan about the purpose of this blog; who are being targeted as audience. After set up mind to start blogging to the world, there are some points which should be paid attention to.  First of all, create specific, clear, informative and compelling headlines. This means you’d better avoid clever wordplay headlines which people may not understand your word. Writing something that the search engine could easily target to find your voice.  Secondly, even if you are writing online, do not forget to write carefully. Only because your audience could only know about you through your writing. If you get sloppy and always create half-baked sentence, no credibility will be built between you and your readers. Being honest and transparent is also a vital character to stick on.  Here comes to the most important thing which should be checked before you type anything. Define your audience. Have a clear purpose. Be scope. We will talk about these elements in the next blog. 

Draft Email to Olivia Parker

Hi Olivia, There is nothing better than writing to your favorite artist in the world. Hi Olivia, this is Yixuan Liu. I am a photography student at Brooks Institute where has been a photography school since 1945. Studying in the photography program introduces me a way into the field, and my English class provides me this opportunity to write an email to you. Currently, I am learning Lighting Studio, which is a photography core class designed to learn how to use 4x5 large format Mamiya camera to shot tabletop products. During the learning process, I am consequently thinking about how to make a tabletop shooting worthy to shot and share. Stopping by your website, looking at every picture and thinking about the lighting, setting and concept. Your works fascinated me. To me, your pictures are simple but to the point. I appreciate artists who have the ability to pursue their own spirits through art works and everyday life. The very end of your interview questions asked about what do you do in your free time. You answered “what free time” cracked me up. Duh, what free time? Photography is our way of life and that’s what we do all day!
 I honestly like your photography and if I would have the chance to talk with you about art, I would understand more about your works, and your way of life.

Thanks, 

Yixuan Liu