AMD 105 MOPA MUSEUM
MOPA Museum
On November 18th, 2023, I had the great pleasure to attend the Mopa museum with some friends from my photography class. We are tasked to observe the photography in the museum and reflect on the overall experience. We are also to take photographs of five images and replicate them.
In all honesty my overall experience was ok... the photography was not something that blew me away. With that being said, that does not mean that the skill and hard work done to get the images were not done well. The artist did a great job in capturing the images displayed in the museum. I personally didn’t see images that would take my breath away so to say. I was able to find a good number of images I would like to recreate in my own style... if that even exists. The first image I am recreating is that of a chimpanzee with his hands behind his head almost as if he is reclining, with a transparent fabric draped behind him... some of that fabric drapes on him almost similar like a shawl would. This image was taken by James Balog. My recreation is in the same setting but instead of a chimpanzee it is a crochet bunny my mother made for my daughter (it's very cute). Second image is a close up shot of a young woman wearing an oxygen mask. This image was taken by James Balog. My interpretation is similar with a young woman wearing a mask but, in this situation, it is my daughter wearing a simple covid mask (she was ill when taking this picture... not covid though). My third image is also taken by James Balog, and it is of an elderly man (without a shirt) back-to-back with a chimpanzee (also not wearing a shirt). For my interpretation I wanted to pose as the old man and luckily my good friend Luis from class was back-to-back with me as the chimp to recreate the picture. The fourth image is by a photographer named Abel Montes; this artist's picture seems like it was taken while on a hike. It was taken during sundown with the focus being a person in front of some hills and the sun. Because the sun is behind the person it creates a silhouette of the person. What I did for my photograph was I got an action figure and propped it up with some sand and plasticky toy bushes overlooking my back yard. Behind my home there is a freeway (which I had to block out somehow) and behind the freeway there are some hills. The last image I am recreating was taken by Hailey Soto. For her photograph she took a silhouette of a young woman and incorporated a picture of a tree in her silhouette. I am assuming she used Photoshop to combine the two into a beautiful photograph. For my photograph I used my daughter as the young woman and a tree I have in my back yard to imitate what Hailey did for her photograph.
Once again, I had a wonderful time going with Bryce and Luis (from one of my classes) to the MOPA museum. There was great photography taken by the artists featured in the museum but If I had to be honest the art found in the museum was not my favorite. I really didn’t know what to expect since I've never been to the MOPA museum, but I feel that I would like to maybe see more work relating to what is going on now around the world. Who knows, maybe I missed the mark and didn’t understand what the artists were trying to reflect with their work so that would be my fault. So, my overall experience at the museum was great especially due to having great company to make the experience far greater.
