koriremergallery

[koriremergallery-blog]

'House of Cards': Who Kevin Spacey Is Talking to When He Talks to the Camera

Actor reveals who he's directly addressing... and apparently it isn't us viewers

Recently, my roommate started watching “House of Cards” and one day she told me the most disturbing part is when Kevin Spacey turns to the camera and makes comments as if he is talking to the viewer. It reminded me of when we talked about “breaking the fourth wall” and “the gaze” because they bring you into the moment or show as if your not just a bystander but a person in the scene. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

Reconsidering Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. A Symposium, Part I - Los Angeles Review of Books

A symposium on Claudia Rankine's "Citizen: An American Lyric."

In the section labeled “Race, Reception, and Claudia Rankine’s “American Lyric” by Evie Shockley, she contemplates whether this book is a poetry or a combination or poetry, essays, and stories. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear On A Daily Basis

A photographer at Fordham asked her peers to write down the microaggressions they've encountered. Here is what they had to say.

I found this article when looking through Buzzfeed and it completely relates to what we were talking about in class... The small things that people say without thinking that have such an emotional impact on other people.

[frankiewaysofseeingclass-blog]

I chose Lee Norman Friedlander for my photographer because his photos are very different to me. His style of photography really intrigued me because his photos immediately made me wonder what exactly is he taking a photo of and what story is this photograph trying to tell? 

Lee Friedlander was born on July 14, 1934 in Aberdeen, Washington. He studied photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He moved to New York City in 1956 where he photographed jazz musicians for record covers. His early work was influenced by Eugène Atget, Robert Frank, and Walker Evans. Working primarily with Leica hand-held 35 mm cameras and back-and-white film, Friedlander’s style focused on the “social landscape”. Friedlander has received many awards for his work and his pieces have also been displayed in many museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and San Francisco. In his later life, while suffering from arthritis and housebound, he focused on photographing his surroundings. These photos are different from his earlier work because these photographs are only taken in the confines of his home.

I chose the picture above because it intrigued me and was very different. I found my puncture in the shadow on the man standing behind the woman. I think that man is Lee Friedlander himself taking the photo. This is interesting because many photographers don’t incorporate themselves into their work. In fact, one of the “rules” in photography is that you should never have your own reflection or shadow in a photograph. The woman is this photograph is probably just a random person walking down the street. She seems to be wealthy considering she is wearing a fur coat, which also tells us that it is cold outside. Another detail I found in this photograph is the car that is in the middle of the street. To me, it seems like this car shouldn’t be there or is driving very recklessly and possibly going to cause a car crash. While all that is going on, this woman is just casually walking down the street and Friedlander is taking a photo of her without her even knowing. This photo tells a story and has so much going on through out it. I am excited to close read and learn more about Lee Friedlander’s work.

[punctumproject]

Check out Frankie’s analysis of a photograph by Lee Friedlander!

[koriremergallery-blog]

I also chose Lee Friedlander! And while looking through his pictures, I also thought this one was pretty interesting. I was given an almost creepy feeling when looking at it. As we have talked about in class, this woman probably didn’t know she was being photographed. And even though you can’t see her face, it still makes me wonder.. Maybe she didn’t want to be photographed? Another thing that is weird about this image is that you can tell by the body language that they did not know each other. When walking with someone you know, you don’t walk directly behind the other person. You can also see, by the shadow, how close the man (probably Friedlander) is to the woman. The contrast between the bright color of her hair and coat and the dark shadow of the man makes this image very appealing to the eye. The high contrast gives your eyes a place to start while analyzing the image. However, it is also disturbing that we are unable to see any faces in this image. Keeping the emotion of this scene a secret from the viewer. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

Lee Friedlander was an American photographer who was inspired by urban landscape. His photographs often include store-front reflections, street signs, city people, and posters. He was born in July 1934 and eventually studied photography at Art Center College of Design in California. Later in 1956, he moved to New York and started getting small jobs for photographing jazz musicians album covers. Friedlander received fellowships to continue his photography career from Guggenheim and MacAurther. Then as a tribute to Friedlander’s career, in 2005 the Museum of Modern Art displayed nearly 400 photographs of his from the 1950s. Sadly, he suffered from arthritis and was homebound. However, that did not stop him from taking photographs. He actually has a book published of that time called “Stems” with images of his surroundings in his home, mainly just plant stems. 

He was later given a six-year commission from Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal to photograph parks made by Frederick Law Olmsted. These include New York City's Central Park, Brooklyn's Prospect Park, Manhattan's Morningside Park, and Niagara Falls State Park. After the commission he continued to photograph parks for about 14 years. 

This picture by Lee Friedlander was taken in Cambridge Mass, 1975. It intrigued me because he used an image within an image. Instead of photographing the scene through his own windows, he chose to capture an image of a completely different place. Was this picture previously taken by him?  Or did he just find this image somewhere? When I look at this image, my eye is definitely drown to the picture rather than the view outside the window because it has higher contrast which is eye catching. The grey-hued background just fades away from the image in a way.  Also, the black windowsill creates a line for your eye to follow, leading you straight to the photo. It makes you wonder why exactly Friedlander wanted to capture this moment. It was also interesting to me that the image on the window and the actual view are pretty similar. They both contain buildings on the right edge of the scene and tall trees leaning over from the left. Maybe this is Friedlander saying that sometimes things actually do seem better in the pictures rather than in reality, since these images are so similar to each other. This would be a complete contrast as to what Sontag would say. Sontag believes that photographing something takes away from the actual moment of seeing it with your own eyes. But here, Friedlander challenges this by showing that occasionally, the picture was better than the actual view.

[koriremergallery-blog]

Even the children understood the distinction. Once Jessie was trying on dresses to wear to an opening of the family pictures in New York. It was spring and one dress was sleeveless, but when Jessie raised her arms she realized that her chest was visible through the oversized armholes. When she tossed that dress aside, a friend of mine, watching the process, asked with some perplexity, "Jessie, I don't get it. Why on earth would you care if someone can see your chest through the armholes when you are going to be in a room with a bunch of pictures that show that same bare chest?"  To which Jessie replied with equal perplexity at the friend's ignorance: "Yes, but that is not my chest. Those are photographs."  Exactly.

Hold Still: Ubi Amor, Ibi Oculus Est (153)

I was definitely stricken with surprise when I read this passage in Sally Mann’s Hold Still. What Jessie said was so simple yet so powerful coming from her. It was surprising to see how much she really understood the complexity of the photos that her mom takes and their meaning at her age. She knows the pictures don’t define her or who she is. She knows that they are just photographs taken for the mere art of the picture. Sally Mann felt this way about herself too. She didn’t want to be defined as the creepy mom who took nude picture of her children. She felt that she was not being their mother while taking these photos. She was being a photographer. Jessie understands there is a distinction between the relationship with her mom and with her mom when she is taking the pictures. Sally emphasizes this thoroughly in her book and her daughter realizes this too. Jessie isn’t herself in those photos, she was just modeling and creating an image with the photographer. 

Sally Mann has a very confident and proud tone in this paragraph because she is talking about a time when her daughter dumbfounded someone who questioned her decision and feelings about the photos. Jessie knows exactly how her mother feels about these images, and she feels the same. Since Jessie seems almost confused as to why her mom’s friend would think otherwise, it shows how confident she is in her answer. She is confident in saying that it isn’t actually her chest because, as she says, its just a photograph and not the real thing. 

The structure of Sally’s sentences help with powerfulness of the statements. For example, by saying “Exactly” at the end of the passage, Sally is completely agreeing with Jessie and knows that it couldn’t have been said any better. Another thing I noticed was that she also repeats herself when she uses the word “perplexity.” She definitely did this on purpose to make it more impactful because she could have easily used another word there instead. She did this to show that adults aren’t always the ones with all the knowledge about certain things. The friend questioned Jessie as if she completely understood how Jessie felt about the pictures of herself, when she was actually wrong in that aspect. Sally even specifically says her friend was ignorant for thinking this way. 

When I read this paragraph I almost felt proud of the girl myself for standing up for how she felt and her decisions. It was definitely a punctum moment for me because I was happy that she was able to show her reasoning to an adult and make them feel like they didn’t really understand the situation that Jessie was in. Nobody in the media understood either, and that was exactly why they got a bunch of controversial trouble for publishing this book. 

[englishjennybrings]

“But in the tricky reverse narration that impels our entwined stories, he was there to catch me when I leapt.”- Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)

This quote was one of many punctums for me in our last bit of reading. It really caught my attention because of the multiple meanings behind it. Alison has a picture of her jumping into a pool, leaping into her dad’s arms. She symbolizes her leap to come out as a lesbian when her dad was there to support or “catch” her. This made me actually go back into the book and read a few parts over again because I was so intrigued by the way she ended the book. It brought to my attention that her dad was there for her the most at that point in her life when she needed someone to be there and understand what she was going through. He was probably one of the few that was understanding because he knew what she was feeling firsthand. It’s hard to tie up such an eventful book but in my opinion Alison did it well.

[koriremergallery-blog]

I did the same thing when I was finishing Fun Home! I was intrigued by the way she ended it and had to go back and see what exactly she meant by this quote and the last few frames. Because at first I was a little confused as to what it was symbolizing but as I thought over it, it all became clear that her father was the only one who supported her in her coming out. She felt confident enough in him that he would help her and stand by her in this process that she took the leapt. However, in the first part of this quote, what do you think she means by the “tricky reverse narration?” maybe that you could think about it either way? That not only was Bruce there for Alison but also that Alison was there for Bruce too. Even though he never completely accepted and came out as Alison had, they both were there for each other and supported one another. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

I chose this as my show and tell because we had talked about how cartoon use words and pictures to help convey a certain feeling or idea. In this example, the picture answers its own question with just the image of Bill Clinton. We also talked about the effectiveness of cartoons when we read Fun Home. Bechdel’s images were huge contributors to how the book is read and the feelings given off by the book also. 

[laurennoyes3-blog]

How 'Birdman' Was Made to Look Like It Was Shot in One Take

How do you make a feature film look as though the whole thing was filmed in one shot?

I thought it was very interesting how the movie ‘Birdman’ was filmed to look like it was shot in one take. I was under the impression that it actually was shot in one take, but this article describes the process that was used. 

[punctumproject]

Lauren found a fascinating analysis of the making of Birdman: enjoy!

[koriremergallery-blog]

I thought this video helped a lot and was interesting! I was actually under the impression that this movie was actually taken in one continuous shot, and they do such a good job of making it look as though it is. I never would have though that the coloring of peoples faces and the saturation of the scene made that much of a difference in how well the scenes flowed in and out of each other. I used to wonder, before we started the film, if it was going to be all in one day because I was thinking how could it be continuous if they have to go through the night as well? However, in the movie they usually used landscape or outdoor scenery to cover and go through the nights in an almost time lapse or sped up way. Amazingly, they still get the feeling of a “one shot” film.

[koriremergallery-blog]

'Birdman' Has Questions About the State of Theater and Criticism

A scene in the Michael Keaton-starring movie gets at a central conflict now facing Broadway.

This scene in the movie was interesting to me too. As said in this article, no matter what Riggan said to Tabitha, she still has the power over him to criticize the play however she wanted because people would value her opinion no matter what she said. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

“We are running so fast that we never look around us.”

[koriremergallery-blog]

This was a punctum page for me while reading “Fun Home.” It basically shows what we are doing in class with close reading. Alison is close reading the body language of these two people in the pictures in order to compare them. It just struck me as interesting that we can close read another persons close reading. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

This was one of the many photographs that caught my eye when we visited the Minneapolis Institute of Art called, Lower Westside, Manhattan taken by Stuart D. Klipper in 1969. To us, it may seem that the tv pictured is worthless or outdated and therefore, it’s not unusual to see a T.V. like this that is broken and left behind. But in the late 60′s, this was what the televisions would look like. This was a modern television. Seeing it in the midst of the rubble and the destroyed or abandoned buildings is rather unusual for this time period. The placement of the tv in the picture is also interesting because it makes you wonder, how did it get there or what is the story behind it. I also noticed that this picture does have what we talked about, the rule of thirds. The tv seems to be in the bottom third and then the buildings in the upper thirds. This makes the photo work well because when a picture is in thirds it is appealing to the eyes. It helps them follow the flow of the image. It can lead your eyes to things like the text in this picture. On what seems to be a billboard in the background is the word “sauce”. Probably some kind of advertisement showing that this place was most likely at one point filled with life and people. But, the photographer chose to change the point of view with the camera angle and make the broken T.V. the main punctum point in this picture. Since it is broken and left there, it gives off complete opposite feeling of life. However, not dead in the literal sense but more like abandonment or loss. This place is “dead” meaning that there is no one around. The old buildings and the messy streets with no people in them also help convey this same feeling. The fact that this picture is also in black and white makes it feel like the life was just sucked out of this place entirely. I believe that was the intention of the photographer. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

The quotation in this particular cartoon caught me off guard. “Can I get in?” - says a child standing in front of a newly dug grave hole. Even though she was young at this point, it was a pretty morbid thing to say even though she may have not thought it was at the time. Alison talks about how she and her siblings were almost immune to the horrible thought of death since they had grown up living all around it. It’s easy to see the curiosity on her face in this cartoon. Her eyebrows are raised and her eyes are wide open. She also seems like she was a bit nervous to ask but she did anyway. This shows she is more curious about death than she is afraid. Also, you can almost see the confused and disturbed look of the man, who is inside of the grave already, from his eyes being squinted and the wrinkles on his face. Almost as if he is showing concern for this child.

I believe that this scene sets the stage for her later reaction to her fathers death. She says that she cried for only 2 minutes and that was all. Also later she shows us a memory she has of her and her brother grinning at each other the first time they see one another after their father’s death. To me, I found that very disturbing. No matter what their past was like with him, I think smiling about it over steps the boundaries of being relieved about ones death and goes towards creepy. Her past with dealing and seeing dead people so often has changed her personality when it comes to the thought of death. Truly, most children as young as her don’t see a deceased person until they are much older and understand it better. Her childhood experience caused her to have such a “cavalier attitude” towards her fathers death. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

I snapped a picture of the UST crowd all huddled in the plaza the day before the big Tommie-Johnnie game. Everyone was supporting our school by wearing tommie colors, cheering, waving their hands, and jumping around. I believe that this is part of what people look for when choosing their college and their future home. They want to know that there is a flourishing sense of community and pride among the students and staff at their school. Images like this one help people to see or believe that they would feel welcomed and involved at the university. At St. Thomas, we definitely try promoting a sense of community and togetherness with our image-world. There are always advertisements surrounding the campus and covering the walls with activities, clubs, and programs that many students go to and are involved in. The image-world promoted at St. Thomas is filled with things like this picture here. Photos of tommies all together doing things for the community or just celebrating different events. It also transfers into the image-world of the students because people enjoy going to these events and taking photos to remember those moments. I know many students take pictures at big events like sport games or pep rallies because it gives off the feeling that you are part of something huge and exciting. Saying everyone wants to feel that way is a stretch, but many incoming students like the idea of rowdy crowds and intense school spirit. My personal image-world at St. Thomas is also just capturing the beauty and attractiveness of the campus. A cliche picture of a beautiful campus and spirited classmates is a pretty universal and effective choice for many university webpages and banners to attract consumers. 

[koriremergallery-blog]

“Photography has become one of the principal devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance of participation”(10). This is a photograph I took while standing in the audience of a Foo Fighters concert last summer. And while I was standing there with all the flashing lights and screaming fans, all I could think of doing was to take a picture or record a video. Even though I knew that looking back at all the videos or the pictures would never be the same as watching it all happen right in front of me. But, I still managed to take over 40 pictures at this particular concert. My punctum point in this picture is the face of Dave Grohl on the screen. There you can see the expression on his face and the amount of effort he puts into just one show. (If you didn’t know, he had recently broken his leg on stage and he still puts on an amazing show) I believe that Sontag is really getting at something when she says that photography is “an appearance of participation” because many people now-a-days feel as though without taking photographic evidence, it’s almost as if it never happened. Like they need to document that they were actually part of the event in order to prove it. Sontag would probably say that while taking this picture, the person was missing out on the true feeling of the concert and was not embracing all that was truly possible by putting the camera in front of their face. However, a positive thing that Sontag may mention about this photo is now the moment and the feeling the person had while taking this picture is now immortal and will exist long after the real event is over. I agree with her in both aspects. In that very moment I wasn’t experiencing all that I could from the distraction of the camera but, now I have the ability to look back on this picture and remember how much of a blast it was.