Omnivore's Dilemma response to "Big Organic"

After reading about the "Big Organic" I learned a lot about many common store brand organic foods that I did not know before. Nearly all of the information that I learned from this chapter came to me with disgust. Before reading this, I had my doubts about how organic "Organic" food really was, but not the extent that I learned about. When I learned that "free-range" chickens are only open to the outside world for 2/7 weeks of their lives, I felt disgust for the USDA standards and policies. I'd like to believe that the majority of people who choose to eat organic are doing so because they have are trying to avoid any practices that may be seen as inhumane. It is also very misleading that grocery stores like whole foods create untruthful narrations of what the consumers food is by displaying photographs of small farms, when in reality, industrialized “big organic” farms are not far off from non-organic farms. For example, Pollan discovers that the organic cows are fed organic corn but live lives very similar to non-organic cows. 

Surveillance Photography

Surveillance art was a very interesting subject to learn about. Before this class never realized how much a person was scene on a camera per day. Are Cameras the New Guns by Kyle VanHemert raises some interesting points? Never really thought about taking photos in a public space could lead to being arrested. Also, never new there was a surveillance law. In addition I learned in some cases you need consent to be on camera. In the case the man was found guilty for the recording. If the cop was the one recording would it still have the same out come? Most likely not because if a cop gets arrested people will lose trust in law enforcement. This is a pretty huge double standard. Also, seems strange that you can receive 4 to 15 years in prison for a photo. 15 years is a long time for something so simple. That is longer than some arrests for something more serious. If you take a photo of something and a cop so happens to walk through the photo can you be arrested for that? People should be able to take photos of things in a public space. Surveillance photos can be very interesting. For instance candid street photography you take photos of what is actually going on. People are not acting differently because they do not know there is a camera around. Surveillance art was a very cool subject I never thought about before.

Trevor Paglen

The Trevor Paglen folder I found very interesting because it covers a wide range of different subject matters. For example it talks about Activist Art, Geography and Art, and Landscapes. Photography played a key role in different movements. For instance the relationship between Art and politics. Photography medium increasingly shaped the twentieth-century. Photography also plays a role in antiwar movements. It is a key role in antiwar movements because it shows how people suffer because of it. Antiwar photos are very common because it is very hard to capture war in a positive light. It often shows suffering because they want to create empathy with the viewers. Children are often photographed for this reason. A photography will avoid the picture of the happy family being reunited, if they can capture a photo of a child crying over a victim of war. This article got me thinking back to class when we were considering if documentary photography was an art. If you are documenting something is it art?

Reality TV Goes to War: A different Kind of Fear Factor by Alessandra Stanley

Reality TV Goes to War: A different Kind of Fear Factor by Alessandra Stanley I found very interesting. I agree with the article when it says that since “Vietnam Americans have grown accustomed to escalation of war on television”. In class we talked about how the Vietnam War was the first war to be televised to the public. Unfortunately it did not show the United States in a good light. This shocked the American people. Mr. Hussein appeared on Iraqi television and admitted to having weapons of mass destructions. This was a first TV surrender ever. It should maybe be the last. Television today is very staged. People never really know if what they are saying is true or not. Some matters are so delicate that having them in front of the television camera might not be the best thing in the world. The Iraqi leader was told if he made this statement then it would avoid military defeat. This just seems away to humiliate the Iraqi leader. This matter could have been solved with the 5 other conditions that came with peace.  Having the President go on live TV seems a little to far because people still need to believe in their country.

Randall Response

The way the mainstream media covers traumatic events has interested me for quite awhile. Randall's article has solidified my opinion of the matter once again. It is my opinion that the mainstream media, be it news, television, or cinema, takes the traumatic event and capitalizes and essentially glorifies it. Movies and programs about wartime and the terrorist attacks exemplify this. There have been countless movies made about soldiers in either World War and about Vietnam, from accounts of prisoners of war to following a soldier into the action and to what happens when they arrive back home. On the one year anniversary of 9/11, each and every news channel had it's own remembrance documentary about the attacks, which I believe they now air every year. But what really bothers me the most, more so than glorifying war, is what the news channels are doing for crimes. All we ever really hear about on the news is " so and so shot and killed" or the latest convenience store robbery, and it's sending the wrong message. It's sending the message that despite being against the law, these things will get you known and your name across the news. It's almost as if the news stations are flat out telling these people to go ahead and commit the crime, we'll follow you as you do and report on it.
There is a point where the human curiosity and need for information goes overboard. I'm thinking back to the Boston Bombings, around the time when the information about what kind of bombs they were and how the brothers learned to make them came out. Not only did the news reporters tell us what kind of bomb it was, they told us what was loaded inside it, described how the brothers deployed it, and , worst of all, they described, IN DETAIL, exactly how and where they got their information and instructions on how to build the bombs. When I saw that being reported on, I quite literally screamed at the news reporters through my television for being such idiots. Now, thanks to them, that information on building bombs has been mass distributed for anybody else thinking of bombing something to use.

Richard Prince, Questions About Appropriation

In response to the work of Richard Prince, I find myself questioning the whole of artistic practice. The topic of appropriation is a tricky one, especially in photography and digital art, which can easily be extracted from its original context and combined into all sorts of things or be pedaled to all corners of the Internet. But I’m wondering why this work makes us question appropriation, and not others? Many artists, not just photographers, incorporate found images into their work. Of course in the case of Richard Prince, he is only using an image from someone else, but he is in a sense curating the pieces into a new context, and that is how he chooses to say what he wants to say. Is that any different from a photographer who takes an image of someone else's sculpture and sells it? Or what about collage artists? Why aren’t cropping, sequence, and installation enough of the artist’s hand to warrant originality? There are artists who make their entire pieces from re-contextualized found objects - are they guilty of stealing? Why is the artist who makes an installation entirely of Coca-Cola bottles credited with transcending the object, while the photographer who repurposes advertisement images credited with plagiarism? The artist who had work at the Contemporary Art Gallery before the Omnivore's Dilemma Visualized show had work that was entirely made up of re-contextualized media from the Dodd Center, reprinted on hand-made paper. Why is she regarded as a legitimate artist, and Richard Prince is questioned? Is it because of the price tag on the work? I don’t feel that I have any answers to these questions, but I do think that there is a lot worth considering when it comes to passing a judgement about appropriation, and all things should be questioned.

Campany Response

While reading the Campany article, the section on the 'late photograph' stuck with me. In this section, photography is spoken of as if it has passed its prime and is on the downfall. In some sense, I do agree with this notion. As mentioned, breaking news stories once relied on photojournalists. They needed to be in the middle of the action in order to catch the perfect photograph, and the journalists thought of as good were the ones who followed that action around. Now, in modern day, breaking news stories rarely have just photographs, the typically have videos as well. A good reporter has been redefined slightly, replacing the photograph with a video of the event taking place. We've become so desensitized to journalistic photographs that we now essentially demand a video.
At the same time, photographs are still needed to go with news stories, though many times to capture the aftermath. The aftermath of an event doesn't really require video footage, as it's generally much quieter than the actual event. Also, depending on what kind of camera was used, photographs can be much clearer and easier to read than a video. Photographs give us the opportunity to stop and think about what was going on during this event in our own time. Videos of events don't give the viewer that luxury of time, it's one thing happening after another until it's over.

Response to Randall Reading

Kasia Thomas

I am very interested in memory, even outside the context of our classroom. Memory is strange and almost surreal concept to me — we just hold onto these events in our mind, allowing them fade from forgetting or live on through recollection. Memory is also very fickle. Our memories age and escape us, decaying in the back of our minds, like an unattended book. I enjoyed this reading because it examined our memory. It looks at not only our personal thoughts, but also our collective memory — the memories we share as a culture and as members of the contemporary world. 

What better an example on tapping into the power of personal and collective memories than the 9/11 Tragedy? It was an event that lives on with everyone who was there — from small school children like myself, who witnessed the event on the rolling televisions of my elementary school, to the inhabitants of the lower Manhattan who were physically and psychologically affected by the event. The reach of the event is broad and overarching.

While reading this, I enjoyed thinking about the censorship that came about out of sensitivity to the tragedy, like “re-doing” the Spiderman poster or pulling Hollywood projects from production. What interested me the most, however, was the connection I made between this article and the documentary “The Woman Who Wasn’t There”.

I saw this film a long time ago, but the documentary focuses on the claims of a woman known to be Tania Head (who is later revealed to be named Alicia Esteve Head). Head claimed to be a survivor of the 9/11 attacks and eventually became president of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network; however, in 2007, it was found that her whole story was a hoax — she had manipulated the memories of many survivors to include herself in their recollections, when in reality she was attending college in Barcelona during the times of the attacks. She was featured in many articles and interviews and became a tour guide at Ground Zero, reaching a sort of celebrity status among New Yorkers, until she was outted by the New York Times.

What interests me most about this documentary and about the reading is that often times we feel that in instances of importance, such as tragedy, that our memory and recollection of those events is infallible. In general, we have experienced a traumatic experience and, as a result, we may never forget that, and, yet, so easily we are tricked by ourselves, other people, or the media into thinking otherwise.

Kaitrin Acuna - Bush Image Stagecraft Response

After reading Bumiller's New York Times article, thoughts of how much we construct our own reality immediately came to mind. In the case of presidential elections, every single public appearance is treated like a set. There are camera people aware of specific angles, people assigned to light the scene in a very specific way, and props, outfits, and mannerisms are all consulted on before hand. I was particularly shocked to find that this was not only the case with capital appearances, but even political appearances at universities. Every detail is constructed.

Another tidbit that particularly surprised me what that people in the front few rows at a Bush talk were asked to remove their ties so that they seemed to represent a different class for photo purposes. This completely buys into the false idea that certain classes or groups of people look a certain way, and contributes to that problem, but I suppose I digress, and that's not really the point here.

While we scorn these acts of false representation, are we ourselves being hypocritical? Every time we cover a zit, dress up for a business interview, or put on hair extensions--are we not doing essentially the same thing? Aren't we just constructing our own images and realities by doing this? When we clean our house before our family comes over, are we not constructing our own sets based on how we want to be perceived? I think we are all guilty of this to some extent.

Response to Campany Reading

What interested me the most was Campany’s examination of freeze frames and screen shots as “a kind of instant history or memory that … [moving images are not]”. The blurry, hazy quality of the freeze frame is certainly more similar to an actual memory. A memory, in my experience at least, is usually a murky recollection, stunted and vague, much like a freeze frame. What I did not necessarily agree with, however, was that “the photograph seems memorable in the contemporary media-sphere it is probably because it says very little.”

Campany makes a good point that these stills rely on our culture’s reliance on visual media and the “televisual”; however, relying on a collective knowledge doesn't necessarily detract from the value or meaning of the image. A screen shot speaks volumes as it appears to speak the unadulterated truth — it is a frame and seemingly unedited. I think this quality is largely due to the fact that the screenshot feels candid — it is a quick snapshot of something larger. It was not meant to be seen without the context of a whole and, as result, it is exposed as a vulnerable image. I think our connection with freeze frames stems largely from the feeling of truth that they convey because how could a still be framed or posed? It seems implausible and preys on our sense of nostalgia and trust.

Kasia Thomas

Illuminations Dorothy Wilding- 126-7- Fallon Wilson

In Dorothy Wilding’s writings, extracted from In Pursuit of Perfect, she discusses her need for retouching in the business of portraiture. She explains that the purpose of retouching is not “to make a sitter more beautiful or handsome than she or he is in real life… it’s more to make a portrait a fairer representation of a sitter than it would be if the negative were left alone” (126). She goes on to explain that due to the harsh lighting necessary for capture a fleeting expression, all of the imperfections on a face are emphasized more than they would be if you saw this person in front of you.

While this may have been true in the film days, or when Wilding was writing this in 1958, I feel that the purpose of retouching today is completely different. Retouching, in advertising especially, has gotten to the point where it is done specifically for unrealistic beautification. Models seen in magazines and billboards often look nothing like the women that stood in front of the lens. Using photoshop, editors now have the power to change the size of a models’ eyes, legs, arms, etc, with a few clicks of the mouse. Dove, the beauty company, has made many videos exposing the horrifying truths of photoshop, showing a complete transformation from the model at the start of a photoshoot, and the finished, edited product in an advertisement. This phenomena has created completely unnatural and unobtainable standards of beauty for women looking at these photographs. (While these videos have only shown women, I do not doubt that there is some extreme photoshopping done to photos of men as well.)

A few companies are beginning to embrace untouched, natural beauty. About a year ago, Aerie, the underwear line owned by American Eagle, started a campaign entitled, “Aerie Real”. This campaign features untouched photos of average sized women with the words, “No supermodels, no retouching…because the real you is sexy”. For the first time in a long time, we are seeing stretch marks, tattoos, large freckles and bodies that more closely resemble real women. They have even created an “Aerie Real Bar Guide” that allows the shopper to click on their respectable size and see models that actually wear that size.  While this system is not perfect and cannot perfectly represent every body type, I believe this is a large step in the right direction.

        I think the advertising world needs to go back to a place closer to that of Dorothy Wilding, when retouching was only done to correct what the lighting had taken away. 

Kaitrin Acuna - Richard Prince

In regards to artists such as Richard Prince who appropriate other's work as their own, I am at a complete indecision in my thoughts on whether or not this should be acceptable. On the one hand, it's another artist's work, taken without permission. Furthermore, the work, at least in the case of Richard Prince is shown and sold without credit. My gut instinct is to say this isn't right. If I'm selling a print for $200, and then Richard Prince photographs my work and sells it for $35,000, how is that integral to my process and effort? At least part of me would be quite negatively confused by the whole ordeal.

On the other hand, I sort of look at Richard Prince's work as an odd sort of curatorial practice. There is intention to which photographs he appropriates, it's not like he's choosing anything and everything. The size, the type of paper it's reproduced on, where, when, with what other images, where it's shown--these are all selections of Richard Prince. But it it okay? Is this just stealing?

I've sort of come to look at his appropriation process as an odd type of performance art. The act of appropriating images is likely not be thought of without backlash of some kind. If these questions and conflicts are all ideas that Prince wants to bring about as a discussion, can we not look at his decisions as a type of performance?

The Neighbors

This was a very interesting article because the case in question is so tough to take a side on. Arne Svenson started a series called The Neighbors for which he took photographs of his neighbors from his apartment using a telephoto lens. As creepy as it sounds, his goal was to capture "vignettes of quietude", not record his neighbors lives. He also kept their identities a mystery by only capturing the back of their heads, their legs or their backs. Despite the attempt to keep his neighbors identities a secret, when they found out his neighbors were obviously upset and took him to court claiming he invaded their privacy. The case was eventually thrown out because Svenson was merely operating under the First Amendment and the photographs did not break any New York State civil rights laws.

I also side with the judge and Svenson that he is well with in his right to take these photographs for the sake of artistic expression. He very clearly was not trying to expose anything about his neighbors or embarrass them in any way. He made a good point in saying that, “social media, banks, internet companies, etc., know far more about the occupants of the building than I ever would learn through the process of taking photographs of their hands, backs, and legs”, which illustrated in Neighbors #11. It is just an image of an unidentified person laying on a couch, you don't know what they look like or where they are as far as how descriptive the building is that they're in. 

To go back to another article I read for this class about the rules of street photography, Svenson might have been able to avoid all of this by just merely letting his neighbors know what he was doing. It might have been a little discomforting for them to hear initially but it might have turned in to something that we talked about in class, we're under surveillance all the time and it does not bother us one bit. It's an uncomfortable situation, but I think ultimately there was no wrong doing or intent to cause harm, it was merely for the sake of art. 

Chicago Artist Faces 15 Years in 2011, While Hartford Police Welcome Respectful Filming in 2015

On April 23rd, 2015, Connecticut news source WTNH released an article entitled ‘Police welcome being videotaped if rules are followed' (http://wtnh.com/2015/04/23/police-welcome-being-videotaped-if-rules-are-followed/). I couldn’t help but draw an obvious link to both our class discussion about police and cameras, and a couple of the surveillance and photography articles on HuskyCT. 

I felt that the 2011 Huffington Post article by Will Guzzardi was the most directly related to the WTNH article. Guzzardi wrote about Chicago-based artist and activist Chris Drew, who was charged with a felony for recording his own arrest. His alleged crime was that he violated Illinois Eavesdropping Act. “The state is one of twelve that has so-called "two-party consent" eavesdropping laws. This means that audio recording any conversation is illegal unless all parties to the conversation consent,” wrote Guzzardi. 

After watching a video attached to the WTNH article, I felt like I had a much better understanding of the perspective of law enforcement regarding camera use. “We are out there in the public eye. Everything we do is public, essentially, [Deputy Chief Brian Foley] said. “So videotape us, just respect our distance and do it in a safe manner without being irresponsible and inciting a riot.” Deputy Chief Foley said that there are many reasons why videotaping could be an issue, including the potential for the recording of police discussion about private medical, victim, or suspect information that would be a breach of privacy. This reminded me of the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, and helped me see some reasoning for why some of those laws may be in place.

I also thought about what we said in class about us being used to having camera phones around, and about us sometimes not even realizing that a photo or video is being taken. The Chicago article was written about four years ago, while the Hartford article was released yesterday. That four year span leaves a lot of time for the culture surrounding videotaping to evolve, and its possible that police are trying to find ways to embrace the technology as it gets even more advanced and more easily distributed through traditional and social media. The video in the WTNH article shows a cell phone video of a police officer being held in a chokehold while people stand around and cheer on the situation. Not only do I think that it was extremely stupid on behalf of the woman recording the video to have taken and shared it in the first place, but I think that it’s a great example of a reason that police would be more welcoming of the camera.

In my opinion, we are all people and should have equal access to the potential that video has to clear up a situation in question. I also feel that footage taken out of context could be equally detrimental to a case, and that people just need to be careful and thorough if they’re going to take or use footage in this capacity.

Response to Karen Randall

In Karen Randall's essay "Speaking the Unspeakable: Invisibility and Trauma after 9/11" she asks "why is television a suitable vehicle for sensitive or traumatic issues when cinema is not?" She prefaces this question by providing examples of both television broadcasts that deal directly with the trauma of 9/11 and cinematic endeavors that allude to the trauma. She explains that this format of dealing with trauma has been part of a trend in trauma's representation in media since WWI. After both WWI and the Vietnam war as well as other periods of conflict or disaster there is generally a gap of a few years before any cinematic representation of the event hits the big screen where as TV documentaries and coverage are released as soon as possible. I feel as though this gap is necessary because, as Randall mentions in the beginning of her essay, it has to be conscious of collective memory. Documentary footage and news reports provide cold factual information, with the occasional human interest stories sprinkled in when dealing with the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event. And in this immediate aftermath all people want are the facts, 9/11 was a major source of confusion and disorientation and it is the job of the news to relay information to the people as it becomes available. On the other hand one thing that is not needed in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event is an artistic interpretation of said event. Communities need time to process and begin healing before reflecting on a disaster. Once a collective memory has begun to form after an appropriate amount of time cinematic interpretations can help to form that memory as well as encourage communities to continue reflecting on the event.

Street Photography Tips for the Modern World

This article was incredibly relevant to me because I am someone who loves street photography. I have always loved walking around with my camera and photographing the everyday lives of everyday people and being able to capture something from that, that's not so everyday. This also resonates with me because after I graduate I am heading in to the photojournalism workforce and these are thing I will really need to know as a photographer for a newspaper.
This article has sort put me at ease as far as being nervous about taking pictures of people on the street for two reasons. One, I am not the only one who sometimes feels a little weird about photographing strangers. And two, it is completely okay to do so and more often than not people are okay with it. The advice the author gave about how to conduct yourself when making photographs on the street was really helpful as well because it is one of those things that no one ever really tells you, you have to kind of figure it out on your own and I for one was not doing it right. The fact that he advised us to be more obvious than sneaky was something that I had been doing wrong because I was always afraid of people seeing a camera being pointed at them and freezing up and ruining the moment. But he makes a good point about people getting more uncomfortable if they think  you are being shady.
This article really informed me a lot about how to conduct myself as I go out in to the world and try to do my job as a photojournalist. I believe that it has given me things to think about and practice that will improve my skills and craft.

Svenson's 'The Neighbors' Wins, Over Svenson's Actual Neighbors.

As a photographer, I am always interested to read articles about the ethics and laws of photography, which can often be very confusing. In the case of Arne Svenson’s series The Neighbors, I still don’t quite know where I stand after reading this article, because I can see both sides of the issue and I believe that both sides have valid points.

In favor of Svenson, I agree that his intentions seem legitimate, and I think the fact that he was careful to omit faces does give him at least a few brownie points when it comes to ethics. However, when I try to put myself in the perspective of his neighbors, I predict that I would also probably feel a little uncomfortable or exposed if I were to walk into a gallery and happen upon an image of myself taking a nap on my couch, like Neighbor #11. 

With that being said, I think that the court ruling was fair, as I don’t feel that Svenson broke any laws. Like I have said many, many times in class, photography is a contextual technology and art, and I think that our attitudes on an image and on photography in general depend entirely upon its context. Svenson makes a compelling point when he says, “social media, banks, internet companies, etc., know far more about the occupants of the building than I ever would learn through the process of taking photographs of their hands, backs, and legs.” As was discussed in class, we are photographed and videoed more times throughout a single day than we can imagine. When I was abroad in London, CCTV notices were always there to remind you of this fact, and it just became something that you got used to. Here in the U.S., you might see a sign that makes you aware of surveillance – however of the 200 plus times that you’re photographed daily, you’re only aware of it maybe a small fraction of the time. I think that’s part of why we’re always so shocked here in the states to hear a statistic such as “200 plus photographs and videos” for the first time, because your initial reaction is, “When?!”, “Where??”, or “HOW?!!”. Conversely, you end up just taking it in stride in London because you already know what you’re getting into. I’m not saying that I love the idea of being constantly recorded, but I am certainly saying that I appreciate being made aware of it.

To bring this back to Svenson, maybe it would have been a good idea for him to let his neighbors know what he was doing before he put the images up in the gallery. If he were to ask before he shot, I’m sure that they would say no; if he were to ask them after he shot but before he showed them, they would probably also still say no. But at least he would show that he was caring enough to ask. And honestly, the images are damn beautiful enough that I’m sure he would get permission from at least a handful of his neighbors. If not, at least they would maybe start investing in some curtains.

Barbie Zelizer

As If: On Barbie Zelizer

In this article, Victor Navasky writes about Barbie Zelizer who is the Raymond Williams Chair of Communication, as well as director of the Scholars Program in Culture and Communication at the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania.  Victor starts with talking about how “big” money influences the way in which politics are handled.  Believing that corporate money influences news media and commercials.  I am in complete agreement of this.  The amount of money it takes to run for president is absurd.  It makes sense that you need money to run for president because you have to travel the country to be heard and seen but whoever is donating the most money is going to be able to influence the most.

            Gotthold Lessing believes that the photo captured should suggest what happened before and after the moment in which the photo was taken.   

Zelizer opinion on this is that journalism is a “frozen moment of impending death forces attention even though people know more than what it shows.”  This is the about to die moment that has the possibility to evoke so many emotions within.  I believe that even if the photographer doesn’t hit that exact moment the amount of emotions can still be very strong.  Although if the exact moment is hit I think the emotions can increase expeditionary.  Zelizer argues against the fact that words go further than pictures.  She believes that people need to complete the event by interpretation and imagination.  I think this is an interesting way to provoke thought but not the best way for the interpretation of the truth.  History is told by the winner and if there is too much left for interpretation we will never know the correct history. 

I have mixed feelings about the subject of photos in this article.  On one hand if I was subscribed and paying for a magazine, I would not want to witness violently graphic material.  On the other hand, if the purpose of the photograph is show awareness of a horrific event then I am more understanding.  I would also have to be in an understanding that the content that I am subscribed to is current events of the world in which do not censor the awfulness.  It is important to be exposed to the cruelties of the world because without awareness it is difficult to promote positive change. 

Street Photography Tips For the Modern World - Cat Boyce

While reading this article, I couldn't help but put myself exactly in the shoes of the author. I remember when I studied abroad in Florence, we had a street photography assignment. Being in a new place, not speaking the language, I couldn't ask for permission, although in America, I usually don't ask for permission either first because as the author said it cripples the moment. Once a subject knows a camera is on them, their whole demeanor can change. Anyways, I remember being nervous to take street shots because I knew I wouldn't be able to communicate with individuals and I wasn't sure of the culture's view on privacy.  I find myself often questioning, do I take the photo or do I not. More often than not, I will take the photo because it's second nature to me.

I think it is interesting that the author brought up our First Amendments rights, which "protect free speech, which means no law enforcement official can prevent the photography or filming on the street or anywhere else that is considered public property. We all know some cops can get overzealous just because they are the ones with guns and handcuffs." In the article, Are Cameras the New Guns? it pointed out that it is now against the law to photograph cops even in public places. Even in your own self defense, it is against the law to film police officers, which to me seems irrational. I think it is sketchy and wrong that this exists. A cop is still a human and should be held to the same standards of the public. Although, people tend to be more cautious of their actions when on camera, it shouldn't matter at the end of the day. If any other individual can be filmed in a park, then a  cop might as well be filmed too.

The Other Side - Nan Goldin - Cat Boyce

Nan Goldin successfully broke the traditions of previous documentary photography by focusing on exploring her own drama through a "tangential autobiography that informed a generation of photographers." Although, I already had a pretty strong background understanding of Goldin's work, it was interesting to hear her notice the shift between her work as she aged, as well as as she went from being an insider to an outsider. After she went to art school to learn more about photography, she said "I went back to photography my old world. But it didn't work; I was an outsider. It was no longer my home." I think it is interesting to understand and push that photographer/subject relationship that she notes here. Obviously an insiders perspective is a lot different than an outsiders, not only because they may have access to certain people at certain times, but because their connection with the individuals are completely enhanced by their actual fostered relationships. I just was working on a piece where I interviewed and photographed individuals from my hometown to see where they are now and question them about their life growing up in Bristol. I think the context of this, and my relationship to the individuals is what made the work possible. I would not have gotten the vulnerable information, personal shots of spaces, and intimate connections that I was able to achieve, if I was an outsider. Granted I may have been able to achieve some of the photographs, depending on the individuals personality and whether or not they are open with me, but that sense of further understanding and relating to the subject made me think parallel to Goldin's work when she was 18 living with the drag queens.

Another point, I find very intriguing is Goldin notes near the end of her article about woman who are infatuated with drag queens and transexuals but have not yet been deemed into a category. "There is a sense of freedom in having a desire that has never been labelled." I personally, couldn't agree anymore. Humans have become so comfortable with the use of labels that anything that doesn't fall under a stereotype or label is deemed as weird, not normal, and wrong. In my opinion, it would just make more sense if we didn't have these labels. Although now that they exist it would be quite hard to erase them, because our brains are predisposed to them. I hope to see labels of sexuality diminish in my life time though. I don't think we should categorize people as gay, straight, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, drag, or even a woman liking transexuals. If someone is interested in someone for their personality, or whatever reason it may be, shouldn't that out weigh whatever reproductive organs lie in their pants? I think Goldin was beyond her time in understanding and appreciating people for who they are rather than their sexuality. There is a confidence in the way "drag queens" represent themselves that is admirable that Goldin latched onto early. I think her work is pivotal in the sense that she gave them a voice and depicted their stories when it was deemed "wrong" and "weird."  

Response to Richard Prince

I remember in class, when we were talking about appropriated images, Dr. Dennis said something about how accepting we all were of the process, and that in previous classes, students often argued about the true authorship of images like these. Now, after reading the article on Richard Prince, I think I might be one of those students in disagreement. I simply do not understand how a person can take a photo of another person’s photo and call it their own. I am reminded of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, and the controversy surrounding that. How can that possibly be art? people wondered. It’s a toilet he took and put inside a gallery. I understand Duchamp’s line of thinking more than I understand Richard Prince’s. In Duchamp’s case, he took something that wasn’t previously considered art, and then called it so. He transformed an object that wasn’t his into art. In Prince’s case, I believe he’s taking somebody else’s art and calling it his art. It’s not as though advertising is ignored by art history - it is an art form. As a photographer myself, it makes me a little angry. Is it just because it’s an advertisement that this is allowed, or could somebody photograph my photos and sell them for hundreds of thousands of dollars too? And the kicker is that Prince refuses to credit the actual photographers of these images, the ones that put the time and effort into setting up a shot and perfecting the lighting and completing all of the post-processing. In my humble opinion, the only artist Richard Prince is is a con-artist.

Response to Omnivore's Dilemma Big Organic

Now that I’ve finished reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I’m going to respond to a section that my paper does not reference but that I find particularly interesting: the industrialization of organic food. To me, it is one of the ultimate ironies of the food industry that the counter-culture of organic is increasingly becoming its enemy, the very antithesis of its values and the entire reason it exists. It’s almost as though nothing is safe – if every alternative food process that becomes popular is soon jumped on by a pack of capitalist wolves and industrialized, how do we ever get to the new place we were hoping to get to? I felt almost a little personally affronted reading the section on Big Organic and Whole Foods. When I go to Whole Foods, it’s a treat. It means I have a little extra spending money, and I’m going to use it to better myself through my nutrition, or so I believe. As it turns out, the food I get there is hardly different from the food I’m usually getting at Aldi. What gives, honestly? It got me thinking, is the only place where I can feel truly good about purchasing food a farm like Polyface? And if so, how realistic is it to have a sustainable farm like that available everywhere? I pretended for a minute that I did have access to a Polyface-like farm. One of the biggest issues that I would have to get used to is eating seasonally. I like what I like, and I like it year round. I think it would take me a very long time to get used to eating only what is available during that time of the year. That sparked another chain of thought, if not everything is available year round, are some things not available at all? I’m not talking about items they couldn’t possibly produce, like bananas and vanilla. I was wondering about products like cream cheese, yogurt, cheese, etc., products that are made from animal byproduct. I tried to look on the Polyface website to see if they have a list of products they sell, but because they don’t ship items anywhere, there is no such list. Upon further research, I discovered a “sustainable grocery store” close to the Polyface farm that provides many of these products. I suppose for a full menu of sustainable whole foods to become more readily available, there would have to be more farms like Polyface. The idea of being easily able to feed our bodies with food instead of chemicals and food-like products sort of excites me, and I know there’s a long way to go, but after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I feel a little more ready to take on the challenge.

NYT: Bush Image Stagecraft-Morgan Kirol

NYT: Bush Image Stagecraft

This article astonished me. I was taken back by the insanity of this reality we live in. If the particular name of the administration concealed, it would seem as though this government being described within the piece was that of a dissociate fantasy or corrupt ploy for clandestine evil dictator. Not something happening in America. Not here in this “land of the free, home of brave”. Okay, maybe I’m a little biased. Maybe my 20 years spent in the realm of the military had led me to believe that there was some true, pure greater sense of good that encompassed and outshined the weathered political world in which we live. Both naïve and delusional, I at first found this hard to believe was even true. Shows like Scandal depict the churning innards of the U.S administration. While dashing in a few flicks of steamy sexual scenes and obscured murders topped with the usual political ploys and jarring lies to make it a spicy, the Emmy-nominated  series has people addicted; astonished by each and every plot twist, both obsessed with and thankful for the “lack” of corruption in our present reality. I mean, this could never happen in real life. Or could it…my marketing major tells me that anything is possible. All it takes is a cocky PR manager and committed staff to pull anything off. And I mean anything. As Elisabeth Bumiller’s article reveals, I wouldn’t put anything past the administration. No cost is too grand, no cover up too large to simmer this boiling pot. What I find most interesting of it all is how much the administration relied on lighting to communicate every message that needed to be heard. The saying “see someone in a new light” becomes all too true as the golden glow of the sun waning through the sky illuminates the prominent cheek bone creased by softening wrinkles of Bush’s kind eyes. Because that makes up for everything, right? Every mistake, every lie is washed away by the twinkle in his eyes and his gleaming smile coupled with that infamous chuckle. Everyone loves a southern drawl. So, let’s put on a show. As Bumiller describes in her article, each event was set up as if it was a TV set; crews and crews of lighting, sound, and decorum rearrange the bad into something our eyes can settle in on. All we need is 30 seconds of listening to his few clumsy words to become enamored by the backdrop. Replacing stickers labeled “Made in China” and removing the ties of men place behind POTUS to make them look more homely and relatable to the cause are only a teaspoon of the amount of lengths a good administration will go to make each event something worth watching for.

Richard Prince Article-Morgan Kirol

Post by Morgan Kirol

Overall I found the Richard Prince article from the New York Times to be very interesting. When first covering this topic in class, I admit I was a little overwhelmed by some peoples’ reactions to the appreciation of work. I understood the idea of “this is a photo of a photo, is this art?” but I did not realize the extent to which the topic has offended and depreciated, in a sense, the value of the original art and the artists themselves. I feel as though those who do not understand the “new” work to be an appreciation fall into the uneducated and ignorant conundrum of believing this “new” work to be of more value or an original. Randy Kennedy reveals this in his article as one woman saw a poster of the original work of an artist and said “Richard Prince has one just like that “. What a shame. I find it very frustrating and disappointing when people form opinions or make statements based on a blatant lack of education on a particular topic. People who believe this “new” work to be more valuable unfortunately fall into artistic fads in which they are willing to pay more for work that is “new” or by a “popular” artist at the time. I understand the concept of supply and demand and the pinching urge to get the latest thing. I just feel as though art is different. Art should never depreciate in value because the artist isn’t “popular” at the time. There should really be no reason that the work of Richard Prince is more valuable than the work of Jim Krantz, especially when people are ignorant enough to believe Prince’s work to be the original in some cases. What I found interesting in reading was the Krantz was not originally bothered by Prince’s appreciation of his work. Maybe that comes with being humble or the notion of making art for art’s sake, but with Prince’s exhibition now being up at the Guggenheim, I found it heart wrenching to  read that “he said he simply wanted the viewers to know that ‘there are actually people behind these images, and I’m one of them’”. Does Krantz not deserve a little recognition if not from the artist appropriating his work? These ads, especially those for Marlboro, define a part of our history. Advertising shaped our country into what it is today, and the way in which Krantz chose capture these advertisements speaks to an entire section of history.

Surveillance

Surveillance: When everyone is being watched some feel they are above the law aka Police.

Chris Drew staged to be arrested to fight against the laws pertaining to selling art in public and ended up getting charged a felony not for illegally selling his art “but for violating the Illinois Eavesdropping Act.”  This is ridiculous because he was in public and its not like he was spying on the cops.  In the video, the cops clearly see the video being recorded and do nothing about it as well.  Drew’s charges for not having a peddlers license and peddling in a un authorized space were dropped yet he still was prosecuted for a felony for illegal recording which he could serve four to fifteen years in prison.

Are cameras new guns?

“Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway.”  How does one make sure to be obvious that recording is underway?  With the new age of technology do Internet news crews count or is it limited to TV crews?  What about security cameras?  Would this not entail that having a security video camera in your storefront be considered wiretapping?

They have made exceptions for public spaces being recorded because there is no expectation of privacy.  I think this applies to being a police officer.  When on duty police (unless they are detectives for a missing person or murder case) they should have no right to privacy.  They are public servants here to serve the US citizens.  They have so much power and authority that they should be expected to be scrutinized and constantly under heavy surveillance.  Not to mention they get paid very well for their jobs as well.  If they can’t handle the pressure of a camera, how can they handle a murder or hostage situation?

It is interesting and hypocritical that if cops have pictures taken of them doing good things like rescuing kids or dogs they have no qualms.  Yet, once they are doing a bad job they are up in arms and arresting people.  In the case of Anthony John Graber, Graber we motorcycling on the highway with his video camera already recording his actions when a un-marked cop pulls in front of him and draws his gun.  I watched the video and it is clear that Graber is being compliant and the police officer is trying to show his dominance and power.  Graber was not arrested until ten days later when he posted the video to YouTube and they charged him for wiretapping.  I find this utterly disgusting.  I have been watching videos of police brutality online since they existed and I have not heard the case of being charged for wiretapping yet.  I’ve seen videos where cops tell people to stop recording or try to block the camera with their hands or body.  This is usually due to cops saying that the videographer is interfering with the crime or too close which is way more understandable than wiretapping.  One more point about this case is that Graber was already recording when the police voluntarily got into view of the video.  This should apply similarly to if news cameras are “obviously” already recording.