Which essay from the assigned chapter spoke to your own experience the most? Summarize the main points of the essay and give a personal anecdote that elaborates on why this article spoke to you the most. Which essay made you think about photography in a new way, or spoke to experiences you may not have been as familiar with? Again, summarize the article and explain why this essay has reshaped your ideas about photography. Write your 200 word (minimum) response below. Make sure to put your name in the comment.
Presentations
9/19 Claire Rodgers
9/24 Alvaro Munoz
Out of all the readings in chapter two, the one that caught my eye the most was actually “Photography Changes Natural Phenomena into Iconic Images,” written by Kenneth G. Libbrecht. They go on to write about how, normally, you wouldn’t think too much of snowflakes falling from the sky. Most of us now know what they look like and wouldn’t think to get a closer look if we saw them in person. They also go on to mention one of the first people to primarily photograph snowflakes, Wilson Bently, who after developing an interest in natural science found a way to photograph snowflakes, tediously and carefully placing snowflakes under a microscope, which he then photographed.
ReplyDeleteHaving never really seen snow in person, snow and snowflakes have always fascinated me, though they’re not on my mind twenty-four seven, which is why this article made me think so much. Someone, way back when, got the idea to photograph tiny little snowflakes, almost indiscernible by the naked eye, and now we all know what a snowflake looks like even if we’ve never looked at one close up in person before. Snowflakes are now an iconic image/shape, all cause someone went out of their way to painstakingly photograph them and all their unique beauty.
- Chris McCallister
The essay that spoke to me the most was Linda Purdy’s “Photography Changes our Perception of the Paranormal” (93-94). In this essay, Purdy discusses how the belief of a lot of modern mythology and paranormal “phenomena” would not be possible without the camera, film, or pixels. Purdy specifically talks about UFOs and how one of the most famous sequences of pictures (Rex Heflin’s “straw hat” photos from 1965) was shot just a few miles from her hometown. She explains how the series of four photos show the object Heflin captured moving in real time, giving some seemingly substantial evidence to the existence of UFOs. Although there is a lot of debate over whether or not these photos and those like it are fraudulent and suspect, the debate would not exist without photos to challenge our perception of the paranormal.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading this essay, I never really thought about the influence photography has had on not just the debate on existence of UFOs, but everything we as humans perceive, especially that which is paranormal. Spoken and written words can only take our perception so far, but as the old phrase goes, “seeing is believing.” Photography does just that, taking what the photographer sees, and turning it into a visual representation for others to see and possibly enjoy or believe.
Photography Changes the Way that Art History by Dorothy Moss was the essay that really stuck out to me in the reading. This essay really opened my eyes to where and how my art appreciation came about. Hanging images on my wall has really just been a subconscious thing that I just do. This article spoke about how educators at Harvard wanted to open up the opportunities for students to come into contact with the art that they wouldn’t usually come into contact with. They realized how the students themselves were putting art up in their dorm rooms and wanted to further that interest. The University started looking at high quality photographic reproductions of artworks as a way to both teach and control high culture.
ReplyDeleteIt spoke to me because it brought up how these reproductions worked the same way as a screensaver of a painting downloaded for the use of a wallpaper marks the identity of its user. Looking into my own appreciation for art and where it comes from is in fact from the photography reproductions that my teachers have shown me in my classes. I would not have the time or money to take trips to see the original paintings or sculptures. Harvard set the pace of reproducing these magnificent pieces of artwork to make it easily accessible for students to compare and contrast the artworks and study their vivid details. Also, reproducing this art gave the students freedom to reinvent and contradict the original meanings of these pieces.
-Claire Rodgers
In chapter two, Photography Changes Who Can See Images of Us was the part that stuck out most to me. Haidy Geismar wrote about the fundamental question and problem of should people be able to see images so freely? She brings up concern over how images can be taken someone and given a whole new meaning, copyright issues, and the power behind taking photographs. She also goes on to question if photographs are meant to be freely seen, since that is an issue with many cultural groups.Throughout the article, Geismar writes mainly about about aboriginal cultures and how they are photographed, usually without permission, and how when people view those images, they can miss the meaning behind them.
ReplyDeleteIn modern times, you still see the issue of seeing an image and then either missing the meaning entirely, or assuming something wrong about the image. For example, if someone takes an image of a mother yelling at her child and the child crying they could say the mother is abusive and horrible when it is just the mother punishing the child for hurting another child or doing something very bad. Unless explained, the view has no idea. I think people need to be very careful when looking at an image with no context and be careful not to assume because they could be missing the image’s point entirely.
In the article, Photography Changes Our Awareness of Poverty by Bonnie Yochelson she discusses how the police reporter Jacob Riis took the photo "Five cents a spot". Back in 1889 while a boom of european immigrants caused a housing crisis, and saw a rise in illegal rooming houses. Charging 5 cents per spot in which you'd be crammed into a room packed with strangers became an infamous issue. Riis took the picture at midnight in complete darkness using igniting magnesium flash-powder to illuminate the room. No one knew what the room even looked like. They couldn't clearly see the room at the time, that is until the negatives were developed. The harshness of the conditions and the startled immigrants being woken up by the flash were exposed.
ReplyDeleteI Found this article to be the most interesting because shooting this photo caused the photographer to shift from just reporting the grim scenes to figuring out and understanding what caused them. Riis states, "it is not not the squalid people that make the squalid houses, but the squalid houses that make the squalid people." I think documenting scenes such as this would be tough, it is also very necessary. As the author states Riis was showing people things they didn't want to see. People need to be made aware of injustice that is happening around them, because when that happens, it becomes their choice to respond and to help make a change.
-Madison Morrow
In the article, “Photography Changes What We Can See in the Universe” by Giovanni G. Fazio, Fazio explains that the Infrared Array Camera on NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has been able to capture its first picture of the Messier 81 galaxy in 2003. After the image was released to the public, it proved that the Spitzer was “ready for business.”
ReplyDeleteInventions like this telescope have helped us see beyond the planet we live in. Being able to see things like other galaxies can help us discover and realize that we may not be the only beings in the universe. Images such as the one taken by the IRAC are breathtaking for me. When seeing an image like that, it makes me believe that the universe is vast and beautiful and that there’s so much to be explored. Photography has opened doors for research and gives an audience a chance to see things that aren’t right in front of their faces. Photography also lets us see things that are too small for the eye to see. When viewing the image taken by the IRAC, we see the gases and particles that make up the universe. I love seeing images like this. They show me that there are beautiful in this universe other than our planet Earth.
- Rebecca Ross
In the article, Photography Changes Our Knowledge of New Species by Jeffrey T. Williams, he talks about how photography has helped document new species of fish. Before photography, artist had to attempt to capture the exact colors and patterns on the new species of fish discovered, which was very difficult. He continues to explain how photography has made documenting new species easier. He also mentions that digital photography is particularly better because of the ability to immediately compare the image of the fish captured. Compared to film where they had to wait for images to get processed just to find out they were blurry or didn’t capture the exact colors because different films emphasize certain colors more than others.
ReplyDeleteI chose this article because, before reading it I never knew the struggle for scientists to get images of the new species they discover back before digital photography. I find this interesting because I was once a science major and I still carry the will to learn about animals. I’m glad digital photography exists so we can see different species of animals, we’d probably never see otherwise. We are given the opportunity to be aware of their existence and appearance thanks to photography.
-Kenjinique Davis
In the article, Photography Changes What We Know About Spiders, author Johnathan Coddington explains that spiders have been looked at and studied for quite some time. Scientists would observe them in through microscopes or by the naked eye, and would simply sketch the different parts about them. An important factor about spiders that was always overlooked, however, was how spiders would hunt: their webs. Spider webs are crafted differently based on the species, but scientists had a difficult time studying them because they were so fragile and almost invisible to the naked eye (for obvious reasons, of course). Scientists would try to carefully move them, or spritz them with water (which ended up weighing down the web and ruining the architecture), but nothing seemed to work to preserve the natural beauty the spider had created.
ReplyDeleteIt was not until the mid-1960 when Smithsonian employee Bill Eberhard and his grandmother discovered the solution that would be widely praised. They lightly coated their spider webs with cornstarch, which is light enough to not weigh down and ruin the web, but powdery and visible to the naked eye, which made photographing the web and studying it much easier. It is such an interesting and cheap method to come up with, and it worked so well for the scientists who were all having the same common issue.
-Olivia Teague
As always your articles do inspire me. Every single detail you have posted was great. Fotostudio
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