Eye of the Machine

In undergrad, I double majored in painting and photography. During this time, some of the most valuable lessons I learned about photography were from painting instructors. Even now, I find myself reading essays by the painter David Hockney and find that it influences how I think about my photographs. Painting is so much about seeing, which may sound obvious or even silly, but especially when painting from observation, your eyes become trained to look. One of my figure painting instructors painted beautiful trompe l'oeil paintings, and talked about how much differently our eyes see than a camera sees. Because we have two eyes, we see rounded shapes without hard edges. The camera, with its single lens, sees hard, sharp edges on its subject matter. Many painters use this and other differences to justify their painting practice. I likewise springboard from this place, but in the opposite direction. I am very interested in what the eye of the machine beholds. Some of the videos below are studies in that area.