Event Blog 1

This week I visited Balboa Park’s Museum of Photographic Arts and experienced Flor Garduño’s acclaimed black and white photography (See photo of my arm with sticker admission). Garduño is a female, Mexican photographer who focuses on still life and the human body as the subjects of her art.  The photographs were displayed in a quiet gallery with basic backdrops, ensuring the photographs were the major focal points of the room. It is evident that Garduña is fascinated by animals in motion, and surrealism (like the attached photograph of birds in flight alongside a human donning an alligator head.)

A topic I find very applicable to this exhibit is the combination of Garduño’s eye for captivating shots and aesthetically powerful images with her technical mastery of something as scientific and mathematical as a camera. Garduño studied cameras and photography with multiple successful artists at the San Carlos School of Fine Art. It was there that she developed an affinity for the darkroom, as well as her own style and passion for indigenous culture, the human body, and every day scenes.

Garduño exemplifies not only the effectiveness, but the crucial importance of combining science and the arts to create something impactful. Without a firm understanding of chemical soaking, exposure, shutter speed and saturation, Garduño’s eye for beauty in the natural world would be of little use.

Works Cited

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Cambridge UP, 1959. Print.

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web.