Summer Update 1

Finals FINALLY ended. I'm home for the summer now. I got a job photographing groups of ballerinas (ages 2-17). I love it way more than I should. I always wanted to be a dancer and I get along great with kids. It's awesome. It's also on location, so it's not cooped-up and boring, and requires much less cleaning in the long run.

It's also kind of like walking into a Degas sometimes:


I'm pretty sure I'm going to take adult ballet classes when I get back to Minneapolis.

Our Kickstarter project is going really well. We're past 75% funding as of today. Hooray! If you'd still like to donate here's the link: KICKSTARTER - Impressions of the Midland: A Photographic Walk from Minneapolis to Chicago.

I started my internship with Heidi Norton. It's super fun and there's tons to get done. She's great person and a wonderful photographer.


I'm also considering options for my senior project, and I think I want to make a Tarot Deck. Below are two fabulous photographic tarot projects:

"Mountain Dream Tarot" by Bea Nettles.


And "Vertigo Tarot" by Dave McKean.

And finally, I'm pretty sure I worked out all the bugs on the website this time. There were a bunch of pictures not showing up in Firefox, but hopefully everything is well now. Also, I removed last names from the web text in "The Best Evidence is in Black and White" due to subject request. Apparently the page was showing up pretty high in the Google search, which is good because it means people are going to the site, but not so good because it means that people's horrible angry moment selves could be revealed, with names. But I did it, even though I'm fairly certain that Sophie Calle wouldn't take down the last names....

But the names are still there in the pictures. So I guess it's a good compromise.

First

Hello all,

So this is my first entry. I decided to keep a blog about my photography and other photography, because it seems like everyone is doing it.

My name is Meg Dolan and I am a first semester senior at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I shoot mainly with a Nikon D60, sometimes a Hasselblad Digital Leaf Back, 4x5 (black and white), or whatever is handy. My work focuses a lot on mythology and literature (mostly feminine components), memory and loss, and segmentation. Secretly, (my "secret photo perversions", as a friend of mine would say) I enjoy taking pictures of weird license plates, my friends sleeping, and clouds. My website is http://www.megdolan.com, but I haven't updated it since last winter, and I have so much to put up. That's my goal for the next two weeks.

Well, it's winter break now, so I might be telling you about some photo ideas I've been developing for next semester. Or I might just talk about other people's photography. Actually, I'm pretty art-ed out after finals. I took 4 photo studios last semester, which means 4 final projects that I poured my whole life into. I'm very proud of them, but they were incredibly time-consuming. And I taught myself how to bookbind on youtube and made them into hardcover books because I'm terrible at archiving. Every paper in my possession will inevitably come out wrinkled in the end.

Career wise, I'm not really sure what I want to do yet. Maybe work for a corporation (I hear Target corporate really likes MCAD grads) and try and get gallery representation on the side. I don't know. I thought I wanted to be a wedding photographer but I guess I'm past that now.

Anyway I just dropped my roommate off at the airport obscenely early, so I should probably sleep a little more before trying to function today. We're having family Christmas dinner. My fabulous and world-famous puppeteer aunt Clare is in town, so it's nice to see her as well.

I'll leave you with this photo series I love:



This is Evidence by Angela Strassheim (Once you get to the website, click on the picture to see more). Strassheim worked as a forensic photographer and with this series she explores the memories of places that have seen violence, using BlueStar (a material that finds residual proteins) to uncover the secret lives of places where homicides have been committed. I think it's truly beautiful and very eerie. Page 4 is my personal favorite.


Have a great (or I hope you had a great) Solstice/Kwanzaa/Christmas/Hanukkah!