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[frankieschulte]

Blogpost #13

“The Wasteland” by T.S. Eliot gave me very similar vibes to old movies which were packed full of so much content, you could focus anywhere on the screen in a given scene and find something new going on. The poem is not only split up into multiple parts, but there’s so much happening in each part where you can get a completely different experience upon rereading the poem.

On my first readthrough, there were several very strong settings that formulated in my mind. The first was a wide open field filled with flowers on a gloomy spring day, where the trees are almost flowering but aren’t quite there. The second setting I envisioned was a grand, glowing medieval throne room clad with marble and shiny pillars reflecting the sunlight in every direction. The third was a very small, sheltered cabin home in the woods by a river, one surrounded by nothing but nature. The last setting was a stormy coastline with a lighthouse prominent in the foreground, relentlessly beaten away by the surges of the ocean. It’s especially interesting, as I’m certain most of these settings were not what what T.S. Eliot was describing, and upon rereading I had slightly different interpretations of the text. It’s always fun consuming content this packed full of information, as it feels like a new experience upon every read.

[frankieschulte]

Blogpost #7

Pictured above is the cover photo from Brassaï’s photography book of the same name, Brassaï. He’s a photographer often compared to Henri Cartier-Bresson, as they were both Europe-based photographers capturing opposite spectrums of scenes and experiences. Brassai took a great deal of photos all through Paris, and it's the city for which he is most well-known. He's originally from Transylvania, and often takes photos that capture the "primordial form" within things. The photography book itself was an exhibit originally hosted by the Museum of Modern Art.

A note on the photos: none of them came with captions, the book was simply a progression of photos with no tags or dates. This one above first caught my eye by the same methods a mystery drama hooks a reader. The mysterious nature of the photo makes it utterly alluring, and it makes one ask the questions “who’s the man in the hat? Why is he in this park so late at night?”

This next one is fun for very different reasons: it’s just fun! The fireworks in the background make for an exciting scene, and what I at first thought was an oddly shaped building taking up the left half of the photo is in fact an onlooker enjoying the fireworks. Lots to enjoy in this photo.

I chose this photo for similar reasons to the first photo, it captures a very mysterious allure feeling and makes you question what’s truly happening. It seems to have been taken in the same park too, but now there’s a car!

Photos like these are some of my favorite photos to take. A very simple scene that isn’t too overly complex that’s also enjoyable to look at; it’s not too difficult to arrange, but it’s still enticing nonetheless. It’s one of the reasons why buildings are my favorite to take photos of, because you can get photos that look like this!

This photo I’m still not 100% sure exactly what’s going on, as it’s very hard to tell what the statues are. The reflection on the water makes the statues seem far more complex than they actually are, and it makes for an almost mystical scene where it seems as if the states are dancing.

This one caught my eye purely because I thought the strange branches were some strange eltrich horror bird that was flying in to capture some unsuspecting prey. Turns out, upon closer inspection, it’s likely just a plant on the wall and nothing more. Even so, it’s hard to discern exactly what the plant is, and it keeps that feeling from the initial impression on subsequent viewing.

For my last one, I chose this photo because it has the same mist-like quality of some of the other photos I included, but this time it’s a wide open landscape of houses in the daytime. It reminds me quite a bit of when I visited the Netherlands a few years ago, and stood atop a church tower to overlook the many houses below. That’s the main reason I like this photo, it struck a very nostalgic chord within me.

[frankieschulte]

Blogpost #2

The perspective taken on by Sontag is one which I've never truly thought about when it comes to photography. It's very cynical and very grounded, exploring the idea that photography has been in a way turned into a tool for personal experience, in the wrong way. The idea explored that photography is wrong for it captures only a certain idealized moment in time is interesting to me, as I'd never considered it that way before. Many times when I go out to take photos I take hundreds of photos of a particular scene to try and capture the best possible image of it, but Sontag explores the idea that that's not capturing the moment, it's capturing the ideal moment which isn't grounded in reality. It's a very interesting way to think about photography as a medium in our life.

Flusser, meanwhile, makes an exploration in photography far more historical and research-esque, describing the development of photography as a tool to replace writing rather than a tool of evil. After putting thought into it, photography really is a medium which can replace writing; fundamentally, writers would write because it was the easiest way to describe the world around the writer and escape it. With photography, the same goal is aspired for: to capture the world around the user and to escape it. It's fascinating how the act of simply taking photos would relate so strongly to so many other art forms.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is a story I've read back in high school and always had in the recesses of my mind, but rereading it after the other two readings puts it in a whole new light (good joke there.) Fundamentally Plato's Allegory of the Cave is an allegory for photography. All of the subjects within the cave are being shown photos and that's how they perceive the world. Today, so many people comprehend the world out beyond their bubble through photos and videos taken. Many learn of entire cultures solely through photos, and perhaps we're all within the cave ourselves and don't even realize it. It's an interesting viewpoint to take when thinking in terms of photography.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you think it's wrong to take time to capture the ideal moment when taking photos? Or should a photographer aim to capture the world as it's seen in reality?

2. Can photography as a medium capture the same things writing intends to capture? What similarities can be found between the two that may seem less than obvious?

3. Are we all within Plato's cave when it comes to photos of the world around us? How can we free our eyes from the shadows seen on the wall?

[frankieschulte]

Blogpost #1

Photography has always been a medium that’s entranced me ever since I was young; the enjoyment I would get from taking photos never failed to make me smile. Even today I will occasionally take the time to look back at photos I took almost a decade ago, a lasting impact which no other medium of art has had on my life so far. I properly began to delve into photography late into high school once I could afford my own camera, and ever since then my camera is often one of the things I take even when just going out for dinner or a casual walk. I enjoy just taking photos of the world as I see it, and photography is the way I capture the memories of when I look out at the world in awe. Beyond just taking photos for fun, I also started taking photos for The Tech and for any other groups I’m in, and I have certainly enjoyed getting to put my casual photography habits to a practical use.

This was one of many sunset photos I’ve taken, and one of my personal favorites taken at my hometown.

This one is probably one of my favorite sunset photos purely because of the colors and the texture of the sky, the purples and oranges are absolutely gorgeous.

Similar to the one above, the mixing of purple and orange looks unbelievably pretty, combined with some modeling from a friend :)