Negative Exchange

Our negative exchange really helped me see the different ability of varying mediums to bring out completely different emotional and formal response from both the viewer and the creator. Whether a small touch of contrast or framing could cause a complete metamorphosis of the work that we can really find our voice in the production of our images.

Charly’s interpretation of Chrissy’s image is a very interesting example of how by applying his distinct methods to such a strong image he was able to maintain such a strong impact. Despite completely changing the context of the image many elements are still seen strongly in both.  Both look like a piece of a story; Chrissy’s tilted format gives the print a sense of urgency and clearly belongs to a series, while Charly printed the sprockets of the original image and created a set that looks lifelike in its dimensionality and tries to tell a story even if it is not clearly obvious.

I was very taken in by the scope of Charly’s interpretation and its terrific success at incorporating someone else’s image so seamlessly into his own style. It was surprising how similar the images felt despite neither of them seeing other’s final product. Chrissy used a very harsh contrast black and white print and eerie vanishing of the subjects arms into the black to create a sense of grit, danger, and violence. While Charly’s interpretation conveys nearly the same emotions through a digital color with very graphic fake blood splattered onto the print of Chrissy’s image and the anonymity of the hooded figure (ken doll) standing in front of the scene. I was astonished by how such different approaches to the same original image could create a very similar impact yet be totally separate works.