Homage came from an assignment given to us by Professor Nigel Poor (Nigel Poor Projects: http://www.nigelpoor.com) during Photo 102: Photography a Social History. It was about connection. Photography's place in society. The influences it had on people and ideologies. But most importantly, we looked at why people of their time photographed what they did the way they did. So naturally, I was really excited when we were told to create an image in the likeness of an artist that we picked form a hat.

I ended up picking Shimon Attie. We were given free reign over which piece/series we chose. Looking through his work, I became more and more enthusiastic about making the image because Shimon Attie's ideas were closely knit with things that I also wondered about. I struggled to pick a project, but ultimately succumbed to the pressure of other school work, extracurriculars, and a pretty labor intensive job that didn't allow for as much time as I would have liked to have shot.

Regardless, it was no small task. I thought carefully and chose to make an image that was similar to Shimon's series titled, "The History of Another" (http://goo.gl/Sj8Eaf). He used Rome as a backdrop and projected images of unidentified individuals into the spaces that were at many times taken near where that individual once existed. And that is where we connected. Thinking about the fact that everywhere I go and everywhere I step, another person has already gone and stepped and had influence in that place, in a different way, in a different time. I walked to the library the next day, picked the book up, and started to study it. I even emailed him to ask some questions, although he was working on several projects at the time and couldn't answer. I also picked up a handful of books about Sacramento's history, luckily most of which gave exact if not really good description of the places depicted.

The first place I chose was a grocery store from the 50s, or at least that's what I thought it was going to be. It was a small building on a corner. When I arrived, parking in the Jack In The Box parking lot across the street, I saw that the building was repurposed as a Authentic Mexican food restaurant. After searching for a few more places and left feeling unsatisfied, I started to look up older images from events at the capitol building. I found an image of four small boys protesting out front. I decided on this image.

After attempting to get a projector and figuring out how to power it outside in front of the capitol, I decided that I would have to abandon the idea and would just fix the image on the wall later in post. I shot the capitol from a couple of different angles, referencing the picture to see how it would best fit. After looking at the images and studying the qualities of the projected images for a couple of weeks, I was able to pretty easily duplicate the look of the projection onto the wall. I must have subconsciously taken and chosen the image that I took because of one of my more favorite images in the series, because a lot of the composition was almost identical between the two very different locations and images. Admittedly, I didn't notice this until I had pumped out the final image.

I encourage you to view more of Shimon Attie's work. Very inspiring and thoughtful. You can view his work via his website: http://shimonattie.net

Below, you can view a my image as well as a diptych of the images (Clcik to Enlarge):

Homage (2012)