Photography

I meant to post this last week or even sooner but my new "fantastic" google account wasn't working, lol.

Anyway, the class and blog discussions about photography have made me start thinking about and connecting photography to concepts that we covered much earlier in the class. I'm not sure if any of this makes sense buuuut.. the day that we all brought in our family photos, Sarah brought up how we usually can identify a photograph as a "family" picture by the way that the people in the picture have posed themselves regardless of whether they look like each other or not. I started thinking about photography in terms of what we discussed earlier about "convention" and language. Photographs are in a way another means of communication like speaking, and so like language,in a way they follow the same social "rules" or conventions, such as setting a family photograph up in a certain way. The difference is, in language, if a person decides not to follow the conventional rules, they end up speaking "nonsense" however, in photography, I think if a photographer breaks the conventional rules he/she is viewed as "creative" or "talented" ... anyways it was just something I was thinking about, not sure if it makes any sense?

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McLuhan

Although some portions of the McLuhan book was confusing in understanding his purpose, I found it very interesting to read. I have never witnessed a book such as this one using creative methods in order to convey a message. McLuhan's message that all media is an extension of us as humans is given more effectively, in that instead of just simply reading what McLuhan argues and forgetting it later, his creative methods force you to think about his purpose for displaying the message in that way and keeps the message with you longer.

I found McLuhan's point very interesting, and had never thought about media or life in that way before. The point Michael made in last week's lecture concerning the meaning of life and fulfilling necessity was helpful for me in providing clarity to McLuhan's point.

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Photos

Now that my Blogger is finally working..!

I agree with what Melissa and Jackie have been saying about photographs. I found this part of the course really interesting, because proof of what the media does with photographs is all around us. Everyday we are faced with new billboards, magazines, and the like displaying pictures featuring flawless individuals in an attempt to sell their products. Because of the constant retouching of photographs that takes place, it's hard for the viewer to distinguish between truth and false meanings behind it. I feel that although retouching photographs has benefited the companies that use them, it has caused societies to become obsessed with appearance in the last decade more than ever.

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photos

So those re-touched pictures were quite interesting. The majority of them were not even close to what they actually were. It's funny what people image of beauty are these days. People would never be able to look like that, even if they worked out 5 days a week. I think that these days, society really attempts to strech the truth, weather it be by re-touching pictures or creating lies in the tabloids. They put a ring of thruth in the picture, I.E it is a person, their eyes are blue or whatnot, but the majority of it is fake and lies. What's up with that?

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tabloids/photos discussion

The truth behind photographs goes as far as you let your mind believe. We discussed in seminar this week about the significance with tabloids hw they coorespond to the pictures in magazines,papers, etc. I specificaly believe that if we didnt have those tabloid, it would be no different then the assumption going on in the photo. That is all tabloids are. Suppose Brittney Spears just woke up and looked like pure utter crap (which isnt hard for her) maybe gained a little bit of weight and isnt wearing make up BUT that entire photo would be tweaked into OH MY GOD EVERYBODY BRITTNEY SPEARS DRUNK AGAIN!!! AND IS SHE PREGNANT? My point is, all tabloids are, are exaggerated assumptions made based on a bad day. Whose to say we wouldnt have the same views though? that soul question doesnt mean it makes it the truth because they say it how we think. Celebrities know damn well popparotzies are going to be right then and there to take the pictures as well. Its almost like a scream for attention so we think, and whats the newest head line on Brittney? she shaved her head and is now an article saying "she wants help". All of our new pop artists are personally being picked on to make us, average people, feel more confortable with ourselves and less alone. That there are people in this world as messed up or in their case "more" messed then just living the pretty life with moola. They dont have it all good and if they did then these tabloids/pictures would state that there is no reason to be jealous ;)

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Orwell : Politics and the English Language

Okay so as i was reading through this article about Orwell at first i was a little confused i'll admit but as i continued to read the article i began to understand it more and more. I thought that Orwell was crazy at first trying to get people to change the way we speak and write, society is becoming more modern and people cannot help but change with the times. But then i realized he had a point, the way that people are speaking now is hiding the meaning of what maybe is really ment to be said. It would be alot of work to try and figure out the true meaning and then the word of eacho word you are to write down, but that is what writing should be like. Politics started this by because Politicians cannot bluntly say what they truley mean, so they leave it up to vague metaphors so people come up with their own meanings rather then the one original meaning that it was meant in. So to sum up this blog i no longer think that Orwell is nuts i believe that he has a point, but it probably will not make a difference seeing as society is becoming lazier and lazier i cannot see them taking more time and effort and creating new metaphors to make their writing more specific and with less room to manuver around different meanings.

Casey!

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Announcement II-21-07

Folks,

  I've added another very interesting website for discussion next week. Please see the main course site http://cust100-notes.blogspot.com/ for details. Hope your break is going well!

Cheers & Best,

Michael

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Symbolism In Animal Farm

There are a number of symbols in the noval used in a sort of satire way, and Orwell has a way of embodying the ideas he intends to communicate. Some of them are related to humans and the evil they represent to the animals (whips, walking on two legs). Some other symbols have to do with exculsively the life in the society of animal farm such as the green flag and the windmill. The windmill as several meanings it seems, it represents in Snowball's eyes, then it comes to stand for the conlict between Snowball and Napolean, and then it represents what the animals must defend against the human enemy. Objects such as the windmill take on meaning only because they are shown to be imporatnt in the reality he is depicting in the novel. Orwell never seems to fall into the poor use of symbolism.


Casey

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Animal Farm and Children

After watching Animal Farm in last class it made me
think how much the movie was not made for children.
However they may be some intelligent children out there who may pick up on the underlining messasges. Movies today, also seem to target two audiences; adults and children for example the movie Shrek contains serveral comments that are not inteneded for children, the line "he must be compensating for something" is cleary intended for the adult audience . Although Animal Farm was some what inapropriate
I beleive that children of today would understand it and enjoy the violence,
just like the enjoyment of the subliminal messages in the movie Shrek.

Ashley!

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