JOURNALING PROJECT No. 1

David Ambarzumjan, born in 1999 in Wolgast, Germany, is a painter living and working in Berlin, Germany. His oil paintings in the series "Brushstrokes in Time" are about juxtaposing what was, what is, and what may be, exploring our relationship with the nature of space and time. I think his oil pain "Brushstrokes in Time" is a like what I thought for my project, and is something I want to do. I choose the paint Sharks in Montmartre for the analysis. In his paints, there's always a "highlighted" part that different than the background. I think he combines the highlighted part and the original background part really well. 

Sharks in Montmartre by David Ambarzumjan

Linguistic message: There are not many words in the image. The only words part is the shop sign on the street, "La Taverne de Montmartre", which means Montmartre tavern in French. This can tell the audience the background of where this place is. 

Literal messages: On Anchor is absolutely the huge shark in the middle of the image. It is huge and attractive, so the shark can be the main character in the image. Also, there are a tavern, street, and a dog in this image. I think another anchor we should notice is the dog at the left bottom of the image. The dog is being held and it feels like it was running toward the shark. Originally, without the dog being held, this IMAGE would not have looked like the reality of what happened. Because of the dog, and the tightly pulled leash, it would have made me think that someone was also walking down the street, even though there was no real person in sight. 

Symbolic messages: The middle blue part is a symbol of the ocean, and the other parts are all in "single" color means the real world part. The blue part is like just adding a larger on the real-world street scene, which not covering the road and buildings on the street. It makes the shark and ocean part so true that really makes me feel that they are in the same space. 

Denoted message: Looking at this image from a normal perspective, this picture is certainly a lie, and no truth in it. How can a huge shark in the sea world appear directly in the center of the reception? This is not in line with common sense, but there are some "facts" that fit people's imagination. People may be dissatisfied with reality and imagine what they think will also "really happen". So I think different people will have different ideas when they look at this picture.

Connoted message: The understanding of this image is probably that there are some sharks in Montmartre like its title. There is a description that David Ambarzumjan was bored at home all the time during the epidemic and expressed his emotions by drawing. He drew what he imagined the world would look like in the real world. This IMAGE can be said that he imagines that there is some fusion between the ocean world and the real street and that sharks appear on the street.

Final Project: Inspired by David Ambarzumjan, I now have a certain tendency to combine my photo themes more like his paintings. That's the alternative I mentioned at the end of my proposal. I think it won't be easy to do more of the previous "hi sky" series, so now I'm thinking about my new photo topic and looking for a better way to combine it. Because my previous direct stitching made the photos look badly connected. David Ambarzumjan's paintings inspired me to use the concept of layers. I can edit the image so that my "imaginary layer" is on top of the "real life layer".