WP-1 Pre-Writing Assignment

Upon the closure of World War I, the U.S. government hired a special group of photographers to document the events to come under the Farm Security Administration (later under the Office of War Administration during WWII). The information given on the government's photo remembrance site do not match data found on the Arlington National Cemetery's website because the date this photo was taken (1919) seems to have occurred before the monument was built (1921). Regardless, the photo was taken by John Collier and is known as "Sailor and Girl at Tomb of the Unknown Solider" and whose title barely captures the emotions this picture invokes.

To start analyzing the photo at hand, we can make assumptions as to who the people in the photo itself are in relation to each other and in society. The man is dressed in standard dress for a sailor at the time and without the title or previous knowledge of the monument can assume this to be a gravesite or burial grounds. Within the photograph, it appears as if the woman is there comforting the sailor as he kneels in front of the tomb clearly emotional. As far as the woman, she could be his sister or perhaps just a friend but more likely his wife or girlfriend who had been eagerly aware of the return of her significant other only to find him greatly impacted by the hangover of wartimes. Again with no context of the tomb itself from the title, we could conclude that due to the emotion from the sailor's vulnerable posture and the look of concern on the woman that the grave was of someone dear to perhaps both of them.

Yet upon further review, we realize that the tomb itself was constructed by the U.S. government as a memorial for the soldiers lost in the heat of WWI and contains the body of a man never identified. From this perspective, perhaps the tale is different. The sailor, upon returning home and experiencing the joy of seeing his family and friends is stricken with grief thinking about his brothers still overseas or the ones lost and who never made it home to see their families. The landscape seen in the background of the shot plays towards the guilt and odd blend of sheer joy and utter sadness and this cheerless structure overlooks Washington D.C. with the Capitol Building off in the distance. The background of the photo reminds us as viewers as to what these men laid their lives on the line for, the freedoms we take for granted on a daily basis, but also brings about questions such as "At what cost do we pay for such freedoms and peace?"

The fact that their are only two people and such few elements of attention in the piece speaks to yet another appeal to the emotions and pathos of the picture in that it feels so desolate and isolated where this grave is placed. No solider should be forgotten, yet this one was never identified, his family never notified, and his mother left with nothing more than an MIA message from a colonel and chaplain that never met the man. A monument in his honor, and for the honor of all those that never made it home, built in a field surrounded by pine trees far from the hustle and bustle of Capitol Hill.

Pre-Writing Assignment 1

My background with photography, albeit brief, was rather informative and gave me some insight into the aspects of a photograph others may look past or write off as coincidence, when in all actuality, a photographer takes all aspects of their shot into consideration. I took a class called Photography Basics my senior year of high school and it was taught by one of the most interesting teachers I’ve ever had named Mr. Reeder. My senior year was sort of a rebellious time for myself and I often skipped class and frequently just sat in on Mr. Reeder’s classes thus exposing myself to much more than my 90-minute block right before lunch. I came to learn that a great shot is much more than the content of the photo but rather how that content is presented in order to captivate the viewers.

For someone who’s just beginning to take photography seriously, it becomes obvious what elements are fairly easy to control. Some of the more basic photography skills include the framing and cropping of a photo and what the lens is capturing. The framing of a photo is how the photographer can control what they want the audience to see and as Compose Design Advocate states it, “focuses your attentions on parts of a situation”. Framing a photo comes from your placement and angle from your position as a photographer in comparison to the subject matter.

A key concept in photography that photographers utilize in order to grab their audience’s attention is the idea of vectors of attention. There’s a tool in taking photos that artists have to be aware of that is known as the Rule of Thirds in which the shot can be checkered off by thinking about six lines cutting the photo into thirds in two different directions, both vertically and horizontally. This principle can create those vectors discussed in Compose Design Advocate in that in it creates “lines of direction for our eyes to follow”. Another photography principle that connects with vectors of attention would be the idea of converging lines. The lines of a photograph naturally key on elements of a photo and as an audience we address these first when we view a photo.

Weekly Blogpost 6

The visual aspects of a piece of art, photograph or video can often times be the first thing we as the audience will notice when appreciating such works. Due to this reason, every choice an artist or director takes, whether it's the skyline of a city's horizon or the hues of various shades of forest green in a watercolor, must be made with great care and consider in how they will impact others. The appeals to logos may be blatantly obvious in a text but may require some deeper consideration in visual works. Again, let us analyze Regina Spektor's "Laughing With" video and consider her creative choices made in order to appeal to the logos of her audience.

The structural aspects of the video all center around the artist, herself as she travels through various scenes, as one is believed to assume, is God. Visually, Regina is in the center of nearly every shot within the video and is seen nearly emotionless as she goes through the chores and joys (such as playing the piano in a vast desert) as the all knowing creator. This sort of visual display really forces us to look at the universe and our experiences from the perspective of its creator. Regina's argument that we as humans cannot possibly understand God's Will because we can only conceptualize it in human terms resounds in her lyrics and her video aims to force viewers to see what life may be like for God. Spektor includes various symbols in the video that enhance this argument. One of various symbols included is at the very onset of the video itself with the optometry equipment that Regina looks through and witnesses the world form before her very eyes. Such a presentation is direct in its intent and aims to have the viewers consider literally looking at the world through God's eyes.

There's another aspect to the video, not previously visited that greatly influences the viewers, this being the simplicity of it. Throughout most of the video the scenery is depicted in black and white with Spektor being the only thing in color for at least the first half of the video. This selection of colors focuses viewers to key on only certain elements of the video (i.e. Regina, the sky, the piano, the birds) and narrow our outlook in onto the aforementioned symbols. "Laughing With" is a powerful song and is accented beautifully with the video that creates scenes that affirm everything Spektor's song sings to be true.

Weekly Blogpost 5

Within the video "Laughing With" by Regina Spektor, the artist and director aim to create varying contexts for the audience to experience by utilizing the concepts of logos and pathos and a multitude of literary devices including parallelism, irony, and imagery. By analyzing Regina's lyrics we become acutely aware of the parallelism and structure she employs in order to appeal to the logos of her audience. The repetition of the phrase "No one laughs at God" creates a sort of comparison between real life events that invoke emotions and a crossover between logos and pathos. These references to experiences we as human deal with throughout our lives take the audience on a journey on which the outset invokes a variety of feelings and leaves the audience with both fulfillment and inadequacy.

Spektor's lyrics aim to call her audience to be wary of passing judgement on their omnipotent overseer, God, and imply that we place ourselves in his shoes every now and then. The first half of the chorus, "But God can be funny / At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke / Or when the crazies say he hates us / And they get so red in the head you think they're about to choke" exudes a certain irony with the concept that God himself laughs at jokes at his own expense. Such irony appeals to Spektor's audience's pathos in the sense of a darker humor that no doubt we all would need to acknowledge in order to make sense of the actions of our overlord.

Regina choses rather intense and vivid imagery for her audience to conceptualize as apart of her first verse in which she references an airplane full of passengers that experiences engine failure. She provides brief expositions that get gradually more mournful. These references pull at our heart strings as listeners and allow us to place ourselves within the context of the song and thus appeal to pathos. Emotions such as sorrow and despair are powerful devices used in Regina's work.

Weekly Blogpost 4

Regina Spektor's "Laughing With" music video presents several surreal contexts that require viewers to think out of the box and question their own beliefs and ideals. Regina allows viewers to peer into her views on religion through an extended metaphor in which Spektor herself acts as God and is clearly the centerpiece of the universe around her. Early on in the video, the context is presented as the formation of the world around her as the scenery is depicted in black and white with Regina in the center of every shot and being the only thing in color on screen. As viewers placing ourself in this situation requires more of a metaphysical sense on thinking as we can't possibly imagine what being present at the dawn of time would look like so we are left with the video's rendition and are almost expected to view the scene from behind our thin pain of glass rather than being present in the meadow.

Another possible context one could take from early on in the video would be seeing the world in the eyes of its creator. The video starts off with Spektor's eyes coming into view and the picture forming in front of her very eyes. This context is more likely the route the director and artist wanted viewer's to follow as the lyrics suggest that we, as people, may need to step back sometimes and appreciate life as a whole rather than only the parts we choose to remember. Spektor's chorus reverberates, "But God can be funny / At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke / Or when the crazies say he hates us and they get so red in the head you think they're about to choke / God can be funny / When told he'll give you money if you just pray the right way / And when presented like a genie / Who does magic like Houdini / Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus". The juxtaposition of God to Jiminy Cricket is clearly satirical and a statement made towards all who blame God for their problems and blame all things wrong in the world on God's will.

Overall, Spektor wrote this song and shot this video in order to request all of us to realize that though we may praise God and laugh at him when times are light hearted, we may not understand why certain things happen during harder times. It's not our place as humans to understand why, but what we can do is appreciate life and the world around us and trust that all is how it should be and that God has a sense of humor too. In the words of Reverend Run, "Peace and God Bless".