Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Maximilian: ASL: MRDR











Sorry these got cut off, but you get the point. i have links to the full frame if you want them.

19 comments:

Allan said...

The problem I have with using sign language here is that not all of the letters in ASL actually look like our alphabet. The "m" for example would never suggest that letter to someone unfamiliar with sign language.

Anonymous said...

very interesting take on the alphabet, I didn't know we could do sign language

Anonymous said...

I tend to agree with Allan only because the signs don't necessarily represent the literal appearance of each letter. A cool idea, but it may not satisfy the assignment.

Braden Lawrence said...

I say go for it. The assignment sheet doesn't say it has to be the Roman alphabet. The format gets a little stale though. What if you composed the hands in a way you would normally see them? For instance, "A" could be an angry shaking fist, "B" as someone hailing a cab, and so on.

Bhavna said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bhavna said...

I don't know sign language, but I'm guessing that these gestures are literal representations of each letter.. gets a little predictable, (especially for people who do know sign language) since it's with the hands. Of course, if we open the alphabet up to all different languages, there won't be much of a common factor to each of our assignments

Matt said...

I have to agree that it gets a little stale and predictable. I am not sure if ASL is acceptable or not, but for the most part the last image almost looks like an alphabet chart for ASL. You really should look at some way to create significant variation between each letter. Unless there is some other concept you are going for.

amy. said...

Honestly?

I think this kind of eludes the purpose of the assignment.

You're using an actual alphabet; you're not discovering the alphabet in non-communicable forms.

I use hands in my alphabet, but not in ways one would necessarily expect.

Does this mean I could take pictures of arabic letters, and use them as my alphabet? I do not see the difference between that and what you are doing here.

Anonymous said...

It might just be the format in which these were posted, but I'd like this a lot more if it were a smidge sharper, nice idea, but the quality looks like it needs a little work.

Josh said...

Interesting concept. Did you take those other shots or are those just examples you are using?

Kyle Jutte said...

Interesting approach but I would have to agree with the others... Not sure if this would satisfy the assignement criteria.

Adream said...

i like the conceptbut perhaps to keep it from getting stale...you could try braden's suggestion.

I appreciate thinking differently...maybe yo could change backgrounds to enhance the meaning...or maybe use other type of non-verbal communication...

middle finger...fist...

i actually like the quality of the photos...has a slightly voyeuristic feeling.

maybe project other things onto the fist..double meaning?

Erik said...

Max, (only saying this because I know you won't take this personally) but this is a complete cop out if you leave it as shot.. and don't lie -- you know it!

But with that aside, I do like the tone to the images. Personally I would consider exploring other areas of what these forms could represent.

If you don't want to get too abstract, you could try super imposing images of the hands on letters you find in nature, or objects you find in nature that start with the respective letter.

i.e. imposing the 'A' hand on an image of an Apple. You could then tie the 26 images/objects into a theme and that wouldn't be very difficult at all.

I think you could do something pretty ncie with this...

Addo said...

im confused, im not sure if all of sign language resemble the letters of the alphabet, and I think the composition could be more interesting

Galopaghost said...

Im really a huge fan of the quality of these. I know the process you went through to get them and it looks amazing. I definetly think you could play more with depth, right now they are all pretty flat.

evan said...

I agree that these become extremely predictable, but I do like the lighting and style to the shots.

dubanae said...

I thought it would be kind of interesting to use different people's hands and maybe different backgrounds with the same fade effect around the images. did you use your veriflex for these? i like the old grainy look. warm colors are nice too.

Jen said...

great concept. a few people have mentioned maybe changing the setting around the hand, and/or using different hands. i think that's something you should explore; you could come up with something even better than you already have.

Andy Woods said...

yeah i like bradens idea of using people in different settings