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Luciano Ruiz: Instagram

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Luciano Ruiz

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……….New York City – 1965. 231 East 47th Street. Andrew Warhola, known as Andy Warhol, revolutionized the way in which people look at art. His emblematic technique has become an icon of modern art. As the 50th anniversary of his famous Factory studio approaches, it seems proper to explore the not so conventional aspects of his artistic career.

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Luciano Ruiz: Instagram

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Some of his earlier works show deliberate preparation through photographic images and sketches. Warhol’s “organized mess” took much more than simply selecting contrasting colors and backgrounds to create the perfect design. By taking photographs of the objects he was drawn to, Warhol anticipated the shapes and patterns he would later recreate.

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Luciano Ruiz: Instagram

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His final works do not resemble his initial sketches in any way. The use of color and contrast was purely Warhol’s own creation. Additionally, he developed his own movement by venturing into techniques never seen before. However, without his photographic eye for design, his creations would have never been the same.

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Luciano Ruiz: Instagram

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By examining several of Warhol’s filmstrips, it is evident that he was drawn to peculiar characters. His interest in high fashion provided him access to avant-garde ideas and techniques. Although not commonly exhibited or explored, these filmstrips provide an insight into one of Warhol’s main inspirations.

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Luciano Ruiz: Instagram

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As his interests expanded into other sectors of society, Warhol began using political and social agendas as inspirations for art. Controversial political events and social movements began to spark an interest in Warhol. Terrifying political figures soon took the form of colorful characters, revolutionizing the way in which people looked at them.

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Warhol Exhibition

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Throughout Andy Warhol’s career, he created numerous works of art that express diverse interests and subjects. Anything from fashion to current events caught the attention of this artistic idol. Through skillful preparation and innovation, nowadays his works are amongst the most renowned in the world. Five decades later and Warhol continues to surprise us all.

About The Author: Luciano Ruiz is a Candidate for Bachelor of Arts, University of Pennsylvania – Class of 2013

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Editor’s Note: To access additional articles by Luciano Ruiz, go to the search bar at the top of the page: enter name and click green icon.

Photo: Ryan Feit

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Ryan Feit

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……….Entrepreneurship used to be setting up a large factory. It used to be knocking on doors for months to convince a bank or wealthy investors to provide you millions of dollars before you could operate. But everything we know about entrepreneurship is changing. This is what Entrepreneurship looks like today.

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Photo: Ryan Feit

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Today, all you need to build is a laptop. The computer has replaced the hammer and the Internet has replaced the assembly line. The cost to create has declined exponentially.

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Photo: Ryan Feit

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Only one thing remains constant. It’s all about the team. The right team can operate like a heat-seeking missile, varying its path in a rapidly changing landscape in order to succeed. Nowadays teams are more agile and can work together from across the globe.

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Photo: Ryan Feit

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SeedInvest will change the game. For the first time in history, entrepreneurs don’t need to knock on doors to find and convince the 1% to invest in them. They will be able to pitch millions at once and raise small amounts from lots of people.

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SeedInvest empowers entrepreneurs to raise capital in a way that has never been done before. Convince “The Crowd” and fund your business. Fail and you’ll know your idea wasn’t worthy.

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Photo: Ryan Feit

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For the first time in 80 years, anyone will be able to invest in the new restaurant down the street or the next hot startup. SeedInvest is about the 99%. You don’t need to be rich, you just need a computer. Join us at seedinvest.com.

About The Author: Ryan Feit is enrolled in the MBA program: Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.

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Editor’s Note: To read more articles by Ryan Feit, go to the search bar at the top of the page: enter name and click green icon.

Photo: Luciano Ruiz

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Luciano Ruiz

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Photography is the medium by which one creates art through visual observation and careful deliberation. Over time it has allowed us to see the world in a different way by recreating images that are often overlooked by the naked eye. Being able to explore this contemporary form of expression over the past months has dramatically changed the way in which I interpret the environment around me. Throughout the course of this semester I have learned to make sense of every situation that surrounds me in order to produce frames that are both innovative and captivating. For this individual project I have decided to explore fashion and its relation to this flexible medium.

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Photo: Luciano Ruiz

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……….Fashion and photography have been evolving side-by-side for decades. Photographers are essential in capturing novel tendencies, while their images at the same time create trends themselves. It is this interplay of novelty and creativity that inspired me to create a fashion project. The subject’s exotic traits were my main inspiration. The subtlety of her skin along with the fine features of her face presented me with a blank slate from which to produce unique photographs.

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I was quickly moved by the subject’s reminiscence of the casual interplay between texture and color that characterize the Incas, native peoples of her home country Peru. For that reason I decided to use opposing colors and fabrics in order to create the perfect contrast between the subject and the setting surrounding her. By layering different clothing pieces and accessories I was also able to create this contrasting effect.

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Photo: Luciano Ruiz

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I soon realized that fashion shoots do not only entail good styling, but also require detailed preparation of the setting in which the subject will be placed. As stated above, the model’s subtle facial features were one of my main inspirations. In order to create that contrast I was trying to achieve throughout the shoot, I decided to place her in a setting with rough lines and strong textures. The presence of concrete walls and stainless steel elements fit perfectly with the subject. This allowed me to manipulate her and draw attention towards the aspects that I found most intriguing. As soon as I took out my camera I began to see with different eyes the environment around me. I set my imagination free and naturally captured what caught my attention. Allowing my creativity to wonder not only yielded results that were amazing, but that were also in tune with own personal beliefs and pleasures.

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Photo: Luciano Ruiz

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As I look back to the progress I’ve made throughout this course, I cannot help but feel proud of what I have achieved. I was able to produce amazing results by positively incorporating feedback into every subsequent project I undertook. The fact that I was able to integrate a setting and adapt it to the needs of this project is a vast improvement from previous assignments. Additionally, I kept true to my interests and desires throughout each project. Individually, they reflect different facets of our daily environment, but as a whole they mirror my own creative, social and political agenda as an aspiring photographer.

About The Author: Luciano Ruiz is a Candidate for Bachelor of Arts, University of Pennsylvania – Class of 2013
Photographs by Luciano Ruiz – Copyright 2012

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Editor’s Note: To access additional articles by Luciano Ruiz, go to the search bar at the top of the page: enter name and click green icon.

30th Street Station

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Florentin Juillet

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……….This series was inspired by a feeling of nostalgia. One photo sowed the seeds of my approach: a photograph of the French Alps, taken from a summit by the German photographer Michael Schnabel, in the middle of the night. To create a landscape with an extreme absence of light, he exposed the film for a prolonged exposure time for about an hour. The result was a dark, extremely cold photo displaying all of the range of grays that could possibly come to mind. The stillness of the mountains made the photos really sharp, except for the clouds that left lighter marks in the sky. At first, I could not say exactly what moved me most about the photo. Was it the cold aesthetics? The method used to take the shot?

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Apartment Tower

I soon found out what feeling it was: nostalgia. These photographs reminded me of the cold air of the Alps, the silence of the upper slopes when I used to go skiing with my family, reminded me of how it felt to be back home in France. This feeling was reinforced by the aesthetics of the picture – it reminded me of a dream, something surrealistic.

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Reflections

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These images were created during a special period for me; as I am about to leave the place where I have been living for a year, a feeling of nostalgia slowly emerges. Influenced by this feeling created by the night shot of the Alps, I tried to capture views of Philadelphia in the same way: night photos with really long exposure times of places I know by heart, with the goal to see them differently, and anticipate the way I might dream about those places in the years to come.

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Street Lights

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One of the main purposes of photography is to create memory, to find again an exact view we had back in time. By creating these kinds of pictures, slightly different from what my eyes are used to seeing, compelled me to create a variation of what I would have normally remembered. Is that cheating, lying? No: memory is exactly the truth anyway, it is always distorted by subjectivity and the mindset we had at the time, for the place remembered. I just wanted to shape my memories as I would like to remember them.

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Self-Portrait 2012

About The Author: Florentin Juillet is a junior enrolled in the College at the University of Pennsylvania as a foreign exchange student.

Lorena

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Lorena Nicol

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Illocality.

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Erotica intrudes on the illimitable grotesque. The erotic experience is paradoxical, at once infinitely expansive but also divisive. The notion of privacy establishes borders within the erotic moment, as the subject is isolated by subjective perceptual experience that is pervasive. Genuine passion manifests as all-consuming, and thus illimitable.

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Lorena

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True carnal understanding arises internally and from the expression of grotesque (unre?ned) impulses. The erotic moment does not have an isolated locus, but engages the entire self. This includes what is visible to the intruder and what isbeyond the intruder’s experience. The erotic moment acts previous to super-egorestraints that might modulate its primordial traits.

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Lorena

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To this end I propose an image of self-examination – the activity of analysis, the primary purpose of Philo as a space. My composition will showcase an intrusion on a moment of seeking internal understanding. The viewer should understand herself as having interrupted the subject’s concentrated effort to understand the erotic moment by engaging with it. Within the piece, the principle symbolic element will be the juxtaposition between the insistently polite/sterile setting of the Philomathean meeting hall and the blatant engagement with grotesque/unclean subject matter (in this case, literally mud).

Copyright 2012

To Be Continued……….

Photo: Santiago Peredo

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Santiago Peredo

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……….For this series of pictures I decided to explore the world of public transportation and its importance in our daily lives. In today’s world, public transportation plays a vital role in society; people need to move from one place to another as fast and efficiently as possible. Without an efficient and well-planned system, the functioning of an entire city could be jeopardized.

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Photo: Santiago Peredo

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From a simple taxicab to an entire subway system, these pieces of machinery have to withstand wear without taking a day off. Some have to withstand 16 hours of service per day, regardless of the weather conditions without breaking.

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Photo: Santiago Peredo

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Some might be able to take you to the specific location that you need to go, while others can carry thousands of people at the same time.
Some have been in service only for a couple of months, while others might have traveled thousands of miles. The only common thing is that they are there to help make our lives easier by providing a needed service at an affordable cost.

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Photo: Santiago Peredo

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Photo: Santiago Peredo

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In these series, I tried to capture motion by using a slow shutter speed in a few of the pictures. By doing so, I was able to show these vehicles as they are intended to be seen, which is in a constant state of movement.

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Photo: Santiago Peredo

About The Author:Santiago Peredo is enrolled in the MBA program: Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.

Photo: Chen Fu 2012

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Chen Fu

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……….Many times I look back to those days and events which have shaped my life most, I see farewells. Born and raised in a very small city in China, I was educated to study hard to struggle my way out of it. So my life was always saying goodbye to those people around me, saying goodbye to my parents, to the girl I love, to my cousin, and to go further and further against the way home.

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Photo: Chen Fu 2012

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The first time was 200 miles from hometown when I was 15. Then 680 miles towards Shanghai, the city never sleeps. Then after 4 years, it was 5000 miles to Romania – where I was even dreaming of becoming a vampire, and finally now here in America, 12000 miles away from home. I heard America is the land of freedom and dreams since I was a little kid. Over the years, I have learned to never look back to those seeing me off when I was walking into the security zones at airports, because I knew anyway I had to leave. All these years I have gotten used to calling home only once a week or month, because I know living with the most important people to me was just not my life. When Google Map told me to kayak across the Pacific Ocean to get back home, I somehow learned that farewells to those I love – had already become a part of my life.

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Photo: Chen Fu

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So recently I decided to walk to University City Station (Penn stop) and take the train to the airport, as many times as I have done with my girlfriend. Those buildings and scenes along the road were always reminders to me – that my time with her was getting shorter and shorter: empty archways; green bicycle lanes; Septa signs, and rusted tracks. What are in those people’s minds? Are they seeing someone off like I did? They are smiling just like I was, but was that also as untrue as mine? I cannot stop wondering.

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Photo: Chen Fu

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What I discovered a bit surprising was that I didn’t see hugs, cries, kisses and tears. Maybe it was just not necessary because they were actually traveling together, or they could be like me, getting used to farewells. I suddenly found that sunshine in the airport was actually quite nice, and I was again standing outside of security. It’s just this time I was all alone.

About The Author: Chen Fu is enrolled in the Master of Architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania. May 2012

Vietnamese Poster

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Toan Nguyen

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In this series, I explored the contrast between the country where I’m originally from, Vietnam and America. There exist two different regimes in each country. Vietnam is a communist regime while America is a capitalist country. Although very different in its governmental and social structure, The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a single-party state. The central role of the Communist Party was reasserted in all organs of government, politics and society. Only political organizations affiliated with or endorsed by the Communist Party are permitted to contest elections. These include the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, worker and trade unionist parties.

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Vietnam

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The authoritative government maintains its power using various methods including propaganda. Propaganda posters can be seen everywhere on the streets of Vietnam. Posters provided one of the few effective means for the Government to communicate directly with the predominantly rural population of the country. The overall theme that many of these posters accentuate, is that Communism is the best form of government and ideology to ever exist. For example, the text in the first image translates “The Party is hope, the Party is intellect”. The symbol of hammer and sickle appear on almost every propaganda poster in Vietnam, representing Communist ideology.

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Vietnamese Soldier

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The solder in the photo stands to guard an army base. The Vietnamese army is occasionally deployed to disperse a gathering crowd. Thus this soldier represents force in the Vietnamese government way of maintaining power.

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Times Square NYC

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The next series of photos were shot in America. The first shot was taken at Times Square in New York. This location is widely known for massive billboards and banners. Times Square thus epitomizes the heart of capitalism, in which the audience is bombarded with advertisements, a form of propaganda. This therefore raises interesting questions of whether or not there is a stark difference between Vietnam and America because one uses propaganda to maintain power, and the other uses it to sell products – yet the method and effect on the populous are pretty much the same.

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Occupy

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The fifth photo was captured during the Occupy Wall Street movement. The OWS protests are against social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. Their slogan “We are the 99%”, addresses the growing income inequality and wealth distribution in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. This movement which this photo captures, questions the effectiveness of capitalism.

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Protestors

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The final photograph in the series depicts two women with their lips sealed. The sign in front of them reads “No Money, No Voice”. This message conveys a lack of freedom of speech and also raises questions of whether there is a difference between communism and capitalism as freedom of speech is absent in both regimes.

About The Author: Toan Nguyen is a freshman enrolled in the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. Class of 2015.

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Editor’s Note: To read more articles by Toan Nguyen, go to the search bar at the of the page: enter name and click green icon.

Andrew

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Andrew Jakubowski

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………The image that I envision is a mishmash of roughly applied body paint and color-driven sensations; it also includes a body position that excites but does not reveal. This image is based on a personal belief that the erotic is a state of mind resulting from the desire but inability to know reality. For me, the act of body painting is an extension of juvenile tendencies, a return to the very stage of life during which human curiosity (and ignorance) is at its peak. It denotes playfulness, innocence, and imagination – all of which contribute to my erotic, sensual, and sexual feelings.

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Andrew

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Within the context of Philo, this image is a seemingly striking juxtaposition against the wealth of knowledge present in the halls and possessed by the members. However, I contest that such knowledge is the result of innate inquisitiveness:  intellect itself is a product of refined interests. Therefore, the image gets at the root of what Philo is as an organization. It is a reminder that we are all motivated by childish curiosities and aroused by the unknown. Both the book and the body serve as means for satisfying our personal desires.

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Andrew

To Be Continued………