Final Visual Literacy Project F2015
December, 2015
A normal afternoon in a normal park, with everything but normal people.

Janaina Medeiros
Misplaced Lens Cap
AnasAbdin
i don't do bad sauce passes
ojovivo

#extradirty
YOU ARE THE REASON
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Kiana Khansmith

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
d e v o n

No title available
almost home

Product Placement
taylor price
KIROKAZE
No title available
dirt enthusiast

roma★
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

seen from Poland
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States

seen from Poland

seen from Maldives
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Israel

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Mexico
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Türkiye

seen from United States
seen from Norway
seen from Italy

seen from Australia
@perception-collection-blog
Final Visual Literacy Project F2015
December, 2015
A normal afternoon in a normal park, with everything but normal people.
Music Video Review
Waka Waka (Esto Es Africa)- Shakira- World Cup 2010
This is one of my favorite music videos of all time because if you haven’t realized it yet, I love looking at the differences and similarities between cultures. The World Cup is literally one of those events that bring the entire world together every four years. It is one of the most human things that human being partake on. Suddenly your individual life is forgotten and you unite with millions of others that have only one thing in common with you- you relate to the country you are feverishly cheering for.
Now, as for the actual music video, it did a wonderful job depicting just that mania that the world partakes in for a couple of months every four years. There’s a really cool combination between clips of old soccer matches, Shakira dancing and the most well-known players posing and doing little tricks with the soccer ball. The video is in itself a perfect representation of the fútbol community and how it brings the Earth together. The video uses World cup games with some definitive moments from the past to show the former champions of the world.
The makers of the video were careful to deliberately use vivid, lively colors to show that South Africa (where the 2010 World Cup was held) was teeming with energy and that it was a place for vibrancy and spirit. There’s colors that really stand out such as red, green and yellow in some instances, but there is a very good variation between the colors to show how diverse and eccentric a cultural exchange can be. In the beginning of the video there is a little clip of an Italian player (that I’m pretty sure is footage from the 2006 World Cup) and it shows that he is ready to make the penalty shot, and that is a perfect representation of how tense and competitive the games sometimes get. The makers of the video did a splendid job in capturing the humanity of the situation. Famous players (Messi, Pique, and Dani Alves) are all shown to bring familiarity to the video so as any soccer fanatic could see the video and instantly feel like they can relate. There’s even clips of children playing soccer around the globe, saying that there is no race, age or class in the world that is excluded from partaking in a game of fútbol. It was also great how Shakira included regional, native dance moves and steps from the people of South Africa, and how the beat of the song and the small snippet that is in another language sung by an African woman are included because it shows that we can all learn from cultural exchanges.
I’ll always love this music video (and not because people have been marked by it and are still singing it to this day) but also because it is a small montage of humanity and how it can sometimes come together for something as silly (but as INTENSE) as a game.
Nighthawk Painting Video
Juana Capelluto
Claire Holmberg
Laura Katkus
Special thanks Edward Hopper for the painting and Cactus Cantina for the location!
‘Serenity’
November 2015
I refused to be stereotypical and use a nature picture to represent serenity, so I used a serene, warm, well-lit French coffee shop in Downtown DC.
This has honestly been one of my favorite commercials since middle school and although now that I’m older I realize how culturally-marginalizing and racist this is... I can’t help but to laugh at the underlying truth that everything DOES sound better in Spanish (Disclaimer: I am allowed to say this, I am a native Spanish speaker).
Even from the opening line, man “Here in Veracruz, Mexico, we speak Spanish, mostly because it is the language that we speak” as the obviously Latin woman walks on the center of the screen towards us, because she never takes her eyes off of her audience- it addresses the audience all throughout. Even the dramatic flamenco music in the background give it an overall dramatic, zesty vibe that is typically related to most Latin stereotypes.
It’s interesting how in the opening scene, the camera trucks right to get a feel of the marketplace with all of the fruits and vegetables as the woman comes into play, I think it is to depict how you are now in a foreign place, or a more rural place at least.
There are dolly shots (in and out) throughout and it gives it the more dramatic feel of what a stereotypical Latino commercial would look like. Also there is extreme close-up shots of the woman’s face, because yes, latin drama, and it is so stereotypical it is hysterical.
While I sit here and dig for more details on this commercial, I also realized that the entire color scheme of the video ARE the colors of the Mexican flag! The green, the white and the red! With some yellows throughout that play as the shield in the middle of the flag. That’s crazy, how I’d never seen that before!
‘Texture’
October 2015
Rose Physical Therapy Group (where I work) went to the annual DCCX Race and brought foam rollers to advertise!
AMELIE POSTER VISUAL REVIEW
Can I just start by saying I love this movie and everything it stands for?
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s analyze the movie poster. Now that I’ve pretty much seen it multiple times with the same intensity as if I were to be using the equivalent of a magnifying glass, I can see that Amelie is overly pale in the movie poster, and I wondered why for awhile before I realize that she is supposed to represent a French Mime, because all throughout the movie she struggles with becoming active or passive in her own life, as well as other people’s but she takes comfort in doing so anonymously and typically never saying a word, much like a Mime.
The enchanted green color with clear little star drawings makes you see right off the bat that this is a whimsical, jovial, lighthearted film, and it is! It almost looks like the background of a puppet-show stage, which would even make more sense in this film because the characters are presented to behave as puppets and that their lives are easily manipulated by each other and not by “fate” or any sort of coincidence. Amelie needs to feel control over some aspects of life, and so she decides to play puppet-master and play with the lives of those surrounding her, but of course only with good intentions at heart.
The yellow, scribbly font of the title on the poster gives it a rustic, authentic feel, almost as if she had written it herself, almost as if she had written her own story (which she has)(that is the point of the film) but also thinking about it more in depth, the main saturation and hue of the movie is Yellow (which I didn’t necessarily appreciate all that much, it almost looked sickly) but so is the font so it’s nice that the color scheme of the film coincides with the poster!
‘Shape’
October, 2015
This plant has such an authentic shape, I’ve never seen a spiral plant before. This was an exciting experience, no doubt.
There is nothing ‘smooth’ about THIS Blue Velvet
Surprisingly enough, I still fucking hate 80s movies. I hate the overrated acting, I hate the way the actors talk, I hate how they wear their hair, I even hate Jeffery’s apparently “fashionable” hoop earring. Everything about 80s movies screams UN-GENUINE to me.
What I hated about this 80s movie most of all, aside from the fact that EVERYONE is a psychopath and everyone else seemingly goes along with it because they, themselves, are also kind of crazy, is that the camera moves and the film itself was great.
I can go on, and on about how badly I think this masterpiece of an idea was completely mudded and ruined by the fact that it was filmed in the 80s but I’m gonna offer some praise to David Lynch about how he successfully accomplished in dragging us through the seven layers of hell in 2 hours and 1 minute; the steamy, abusive sex scenes, the gangster killings with guts all over the floor, the lying, the insaneness of some people to do the horrible things that they do, the abduction of a family, the list goes on and on. It was a very graphic film, to say the least.
The camera work and lighting was always very exact and fitting to the overall mood of the character and of the scene, for example, when Jeffery is hiding behind the closet door of the woman when Frank goes to have his way with her, or even when she doesn’t even know that Jeffery is in the closet watching, the camera only shows the scene of the woman’s home from his perspective from inside the closet
What appalls me most in the entire film is how unlikely every interaction with each character was. I get that the 80s were all about being different and proving that your teenage angst was much worse than anybody else’s and that no one understood you, and so everyone tried extra hard to do edgy and risky things to prove it, but REALLY, how probable is it that Sandy HELPED crazy Jeffery SNEAK INTO A WOMAN’S APARTMENT. And better yet, later find out that Jeffery actually had INTERCOURSE with violated, abused woman and still stay with him when she shows up NAKED in front of his house, after Sandy just confessed her love for him? WHAT?
And don’t even get me started on the freaky woman that dances on top of Frank’s car while Frank and his gangster crew beat up Jeffery in the middle of nowhere as Dorothy just cries and screams for Frank to stop, and does nothing to actually stop him?
DO YOU SEE THAT? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT. WHY DOES SHE DO THAT.
Aside from all the insaneness of the characters and improbability of the plot, and Jeffery’s stupid earring, the camera work was solid and although the character portrayal was sucky and typical for its time, the plot line is actually interesting and I would have liked to know why Frank was as crazy and as sexually deprived as he was, I would have liked more info on Frank’s dark past, I want to know his tale of woe. Overall, I couldn’t wait for the movie to be over because 1) I was so done with the 80s random feel of it and 2) I wanted to know how it ended (it did a great job of keeping me in suspense.)
Did I mention I hate 80s movies?
‘Silhouette’
October, 2015
I literally creeped outside of the Letts and Anderson buildings until I finally got a good shot of a silhouette. I’m just glad I didn’t get detained.
Monsters Inc-redible Title Sequence!)
I personally love this particular title sequence, not only because of all the implied sentimental value of the huge role Pixar movies played into my childhood, but also because of the mere aesthetic of the sequence. The contrasting colors against the black, the clean animation, the interactive manner in which the monsters and doors manipulate the names, it’s beautiful.
We often see title sequences in which the names of the creators and contributors are off on their own separate dimension in which none of the surrounding factors in the background seem to affect the names in any way, shape or form, whereas in this one, the monsters and the doors fully interact and manipulate the names creating a connection between the creators and the story that they are telling.
The consistent repetition of the doors and the key holes gives a pretty clear idea of what the movie is about, and so it’s relevant and indicative of what’s to come. I like the metaphorical aspect of the doors opening to unexpected things such as friendly monsters or names, because a major theme in the movie is to ‘never judge a book by its cover’ and are therefore given first hand insight into the human things that will appear out of the doors during the movie, thematically. I also love how many individual parts that seem alive, come together to form a greater, common thing.
Seeing it technically now, and analyzing the ‘grammar’ of the piece with my very own ‘grown-up’ eyes, I can see that the sequence perfectly follows and respects all of the rule of thirds, making it the aesthetic that it is. Moments like in minutes 0:51 and 0:53 even the snakes seem to closely grid out the rule of thirds for us
further accentuating how visually pleasing it is, and why. All in all, I love the color scheme, I love the contrast with the black background and how rarely anything is black-lined like in most animations, I love the overall rough ‘Adobe Flash’ look of it, and it will forever remain to be one of my favorite title sequences ever, no matter how old I am.
‘Contrast’
October, 2015
The bright, artificial red of the lights contrast the shadowy, natural coloring of the leaves, which do not produce their own light, just reflect it.
Rear Window
Alfred Hitchcock’s visual adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s short story ‘It had to be Murder’ titled ‘Rear Window’ took a few artistic liberties in regards to details along the plot of the original work.
The details regarding the artistic liberties regard the addition of characters in order to manipulate the plot in a more aesthetic way, such as how in the short story, the main character, Jeff, has no romantic interest, but in the movie, his girlfriend plays a massive roll in helping him solve the mystery of the murder. She acts as a friend, a guide, a reflection of his inner-feelings, which in the short story is played by his helper, Sam, which in the film is also doubled onto the roll of his insurance company’s nurse.
The creation of the romantic interest also allowed for a deeper character development of Jeff, since we were able to look more deeply into his life and into his career, which was the life of a photographer, or as Lisa put it, “a spectator” which is what he is since he mainly spies and figures out the lives of his neighbors. His main struggle in this film is to decide whether to play an active, or a passive role in his neighborhood, a question every spectator must at least once ask himself.
There are many “gramatical” uses of this film in order to further convey the director’s main goal of the piece. Deliberate choices such as the great amount of high-angle shots, and how there is no scene in the entire film that was shot outside of the small room or out of Jeff’s point of view, only add to the limited perception that we are exposed to, making us feel as Jeff feels and discover things as Jeff does.
It was also very effective how the director of the film decided to frame each of the neighbor’s window as a square, symbolizing each neighbor being exposed by a TV screen, because in television shows, the actors aren’t supposed to be aware of having any audiences and people look into their lives as a form of entertainment, which is exactly how Jeff saw his very own neighbors, as a way to pass the time, as live, unscripted entertainment, the premature version of reality television programs.
I liked how there were barely any references to the time era in the short story, and it could have happened in any decade at any (recent) point in time in the last hundred years, but that Hitchcock decided to illustrate it in the current decade and so we, as the viewers of future generations, get an insight on the personal lives and intimate relations of the society of the nineteen-fifties, with their fashion choices and habits and ways of speaking. It is very demonstrative of the times, and it is always entertaining to see how the times have changed. It is also interesting what was considered to be aesthetically pleasing, or beautiful, at the time, since both of the main actors were considered attractive for their time. Seeing how the standards of beauty have shifted will never cease to amaze me.
Slight additions to thicken the plot such as adding the neighbor’s yappy dog or the more in-depth description of the other neighbors (such as when the pianist’s music saved the lonely lady from suicide, and how they ended up together) was also an artistic choice on the director’s part which add to the storyline and make it much more appealing and effective regarding the explanation of the connection between neighbors and the seemingly detached neighbors that are apparently all somehow connected by their relative closeness to one another, by living in the same complex, which is highly accentuated to when the yappy dog’s owner goes on a dramatic shpeal over the lack of sense of community by all the inhabitants of the surrounding buildings, and how their society had degraded into detached, individualized cubicles in which no one noticed anybody else’s lives, but their own.
‘See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil”
Self Portrait
IMG 1
Black and White filter
New layer- solid color (opacity 31%) (Pink)
Changed levels
Hard Light
Crop
Flip horizontal
IMG 2
Black and White filter
New layer- solid color (opacity 31%) (Green)
Changed levels
Hard Light
IMG 3
Black and White filter
New layer- solid color (opacity 31%) (Blue)
Changed levels
Hard Light
‘Cluttered’
September, 2015
And so Pope Francis comes to visit DC, right? Suddenly all the main streets are cluttered, they’re noisy, they’re filled with people who hope to even catch a glimpse of this unique Pope. These photos are an understatement of how cluttered DC was on Wednesday.
‘Beauty’
September, 2015
What a better visual representation of beauty could I have picked, than one that manifests all of society’s ideals and expectations onto the Queen and the Vice-Queen winners of a Salvadorian beauty contest?
Horacio Coppola (1906-2012)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
MoMA 2015
Horacio Coppola was an Argentine photographer that was commissioned to photograph the city of Buenos Aires for its 400th anniversary. The pictures that are showcased above are from that collection, which were a part of last summer’s MoMA exhibit From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires.
Coppola’s main goal was to capture the vivacity and romance of what was and is, still considered the ‘Paris of South America’. In the pictures seen above, we get a unique perspective of the artist’s view on the city. He uses a variety of different angles to show the many sides of the lively city, mostly high angles, as seen above. The photographs taken from windows or balconies that show the buildings at eye-sight or look down upon the pedestrians, seem to me as if we are seeing the city in motion from the eyes of the buildings themselves, for they are also alive and vibrant with energy.
Lots of his photos are also on the slower-side of the shutter-speed spectrum in order to achieve that ‘blur’ that captures the motion of movement, doesn’t freeze it into place. His photos convey a city that is full of movement, full of life.
He also plays with the reflections and shadows of the objects of the city. In some photos, we see the shadows following not people, as we are accustomed to seeing, but objects that we would otherwise deem as ordinary and mundane. His artist theme is to give life, or better yet to showcase the life already present, in every small thing that makes up the Buenos Aires aesthetic, be it the staircases, or the century old buildings, or the monuments, or the paved roads, all have seen the transformation of the city to be what it has come to be in the first 400 years of its life. Yes, life. The city is dynamic, it is growing.
One picture in particular that catches my attention is the last one, of the man trying to hang up a poster onto the wall. I, personally, find this one photograph ironic in the metaphorical sense that this man that is alive, was born and is probably already dead, is seen hanging a piece of paper advertising whatever it is he was advertising at the time, and that piece of paper has very likely withered down with the first drops of rain, or the first whisks of wind. This ephemeral man, is seen posting an ephemeral representation on himself onto the walls of something eternal, or more durable, to say the least.