Monday, June 16, 2014

Chapter 8 Photojournalism and Bias

Photo By: Ed Clark of Life Magazine 
"Going Home"


In the image by Ed Clark’s “Going Home” we see a man in the navy weeping while playing the accordion with women in the background who also seem to be grim. The first thing you wonder to yourself when you look at this photo is why is this man crying? Are they tears of joy or sadness? In my first reaction I could tell that they were from sadness. I could tell that he was in the navy from the anchor on his hat and knew that these strong military men don’t cry over spilt milk, so it must have been something devastating.
Principle 1: Black and White or Color?: In this photograph the photographer decided to use black and white film instead of color, even though color was available during the time period. It created a crisp contrast between light and dark colors. It also played a little bit with the time period taken in 1945 African Americans still did not have equal rights in the United States.
Principle 2: Subjects Expression: in this photo the subject has a rare venerable expression that we don’t see to many service men had. He is in a sense of loss and grief that is overwhelming him to the point where he can’t fight back his tears.

Principle 3: Rule of Thirds: In this picture Ed Clark the photographer decided to use the rule of thirds by not putting the subject in the center of the picture. This is a common concept that many photographers use to draw the eye to many different places in the background and foreground. 


Truth
Photo By: John Decker
John Decker has a tendency of photographing the truth about homelessness in Northern California. On his website he has many folders of where he went around taking pictures of the homeless doing their everyday tasks.  In my own “ways of knowing” I used sense perception to tell me that this was showing the truth behind the image (wok). People don’t choose to be homeless; they just make choices that lead them to it. John Decker has a great view point of these homeless men and women. As Shahidul Alam stated in his interview from the content “any time that you are really able to tell the stories about the people, is when you live their lives, you breathe the air that they breathe, you share their concerns and you look out for them in the same way.”(youtube) This is exactly what John dose with all of his photography subjects.  
Principle 1: Quality of Light: In this photo John’s quality of light is ok in a sense. It seems to be a hazy day outside with lots of overcast. But he still captured enough light to see the contrast with all of the faces.
Principle 2: In or out of focus: In this photograph the subjects in the foreground are in focus while the background seems to be a bit out of focus. His main concern was to capture his homeless subjects as they hang out by the water.
Principle 3: Texture: In this picture there is an endless variety of textures. We have the wet river in the background, the soft fuzziness of the flannel shirt and sweatshirt. We have the course damp dirt on the ground. And also we have all the textures of the bark on the tree trunks and twigs.

Not the Truth
Photo By: Kitra Cahana

My generation of people in their early 20’s seem to have a bad reputation with older generations today. As Professor Nordell stated in his video “older generations promoting that young people are always on their phones, with this constant barrage of videos and twitter and instant messaging.” (youtube) And this is quite true for the majority of 20 something year olds but not for all. The older generation is quite bias against us just in the way professor Nordell stated. 50 and 60 year olds think that all young adults don’t know how to work without technology and joke with saying that we would die without it. But how is it any different from the older generations and radios or typewriters. Could they have had enjoyment and completed tasks without their modern technologies? This is the way we were raised and we can’t help it. In the picture by Katira it shows young adults at a dance party with black lighting and paint everywhere, it is the stereotypical version of us that older adults are bias against. Where in fact only a hand full of young adults even have the time of thinking about having an evening like this. I came to this understanding by my “emotion/intuition” from the four ways of knowing (Woks)
Principle 1: Contrast Appropriate: in this photograph Katira brilliantly captures the stunning contrast of bright neon paint against the dancers white shirts. Also there is contrast where you cannot see any bright colors in the background that is a dark blue gray color.  
Principle 2: Use of shadows: In this image the use of shadows is everywhere. There is lighting above creating a shadow underneath every raised arm and tilted head as they dance to the music.
Principle 3: Exposure Time: for this photo to be captured without any blur anywhere and with such fast movement of the dancing the exposure time must have been extremely fast. If not then every aspect of movement would have a streaky blurred aspect to it.  



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