1 min 1 image: Selene Cervantes

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Selene Cervantes

Selene Cervantes
Steve McCurry "Afghan Girl"
1984, Cibachrome

Steve McCurry is known for his contemorary photojournalism. The image, "Afghan Girl" was made in 1994 during a civil war in Afghanistan, while working on a story for the National Geographic. McCurry encountered the young girl while touring a refugee camp. Her photograph was then featured as the cover for a June issue in 1985. Nothing was known of this mysterious girl whose face had become an icon until McCurry tracked her down 17 years later and made a new portrait of her. For me, this photograph signifies a true beauty, without adherence to a western aesthetic, but still able to captivate one's eyes and heart with a solitary silent look.

ABOUT

This blog was inspired by the 1 Image 1 Minute written column in X-TRA and subsequent live iterations of the project by Micol Hebron. The inspiration for the 1 Image 1 Minute column was a similar project produced by Belgian director Agnès Varda (and later written about by Rosalind Krauss) for French television in 1983.

For this blog (and their assignment), students in Niku Kashef's photography classes are asked to select a photograph (that they did not make) that inspires or intrigues them in some way and to speak about it for exactly 1 minute (roughly 150 written words). Students post their name, the artists' name, title of the photograph, year the photograph was made and the medium along with their ~150 words.

In the second part of the assignment, students are asked to either use the image they chose to speak to OR a new image and make an inspiration image based on the photographic/2d design aspects of that image (eg direction/type of light, perspective, depth of field, focus, color palate, etc).

To add to this blog and contribute a post, please contact niku(at)csun(dot)edu