SARAH KRAMER

Semester-Long Project proposal
Sarah Kramer

I am thinking about making my semester-long photobook based on the theme of “essential gestures.” I was inspired by a statement Mary Frank made in the book, Originals, by Eleanor Munro. Frank said, “I love the gesture of work, watching someone do work they do well or with experience, with certain essential gestures, nothing wasted.” I want to focus this semester on what I perceive “essential gestures” to be. What is essential and what is waste? I am not going to limit my subject matter to people. I will take pictures of anything I feel reflects necessity or essence. I may want to shoot a series images of someone performing a specific task. If I do this, it would be interesting to take video and convert it into stills and make them into a book, in sequence. I may, however, feel it is better to make the book a collection of 30+ totally different essential moments. I am leaning toward the latter honestly, because I feel it will be more interesting for the viewer and it will leave more to the imagination for me.

Right now I think it is important to leave my theme very broad so that I have some room to play around. I do not know yet whether I will want to incorporate Xeroxes, collage, or my own drawings yet. All of this will determine how I want the final product to look and read.