Are you hearing, listening, or both?

In The Zen of Listening, the idea of listening and hearing is discussed. It says, "We can passively hear, but we must actively listen." This concept is something that I find to be so important. Its like when you are having a conversation with someone. You can passively hear what they are saying and know what words they are forming, how they are stringing them together, and what those equal. However, to actively listen, one must be able to understand the words, understand what together they mean, AND THEN to understand the context and understand what the other person is trying to entirely communicate.

Radio is a form of audible transmission that people have loved for years!! It has a nostalgic hold on people, whether you are tuning in for talk radio (like NPR) or just some good tunes. While listening to radio, as consumers, we are constantly switching back and forth between hearing and listening. We are hearing when we just hear the different sounds, instruments, and words of a song. We are listening when we hear what the combination of all those things is trying to convey to us as a listener.

Slideshow!!!!

Slideshow Photo Editing!

I really enjoyed getting to play around with Photoshop with this slideshow. I didn't do anything too crazy with my photo editing because I was trying to think in terms of if these pictures were being used on Furman's Housing and Residence Life page they would want them to look like the real thing with simple adjustments to enhance the photographs. The six photos I chose to post to my blog shows the more dramatically or tricky to edit photos. However, pretty much all the photos were edited in some manner (cropping and light adjustment).

Picture 1:

For these photos, I adjusted the color and the contrast to make the colors more vivid. I also made a layer with the text so that it was easily identifiable to people who don't know or recognize the building.




Picture 2:

In this photo I cropped the bottom because it was just a lot of extra space that was unnecessary. I also had the text layer to show make clear what the viewer was looking at. The most important thing I did was to adjust the contrast so that the Greek letters were crisper and could be read better against the brick.


Picture 3:

For these photos I cropped some of the excess sides out. I also tried to do something artsy with the black and white photo, and also highlighting the two faces in the photo in white.

Picture 4:

In this picture I played with the lighting a bit because of the night time photography on my phone. I also added a text layer in order to label the picture of what was going on, because by looking at the photo it isn't entirely clear.

Picture 5:

This photo was actually a trickier one for me. The original photo I took really was not doing the colors in the bedspread justice and just looked very dull. So, I played around with the brightness and the contrast of the photo to get a more authentic look of the room. I also put the text overlay on the photo.






Picture 6:

This photo was probably the photo that I went back and forth on the most editing wise. I didn't like all the reflections that the mirrors were casting in each other so I cropped most of the mirrors out so that it was really focused on the bathroom vanity sink. However, I am not entirely sure whether that did the bathroom a justice or injustice. I also slightly adjusted the crispness and lighting in the photo.

Given and New in Composition!

The composition or layout of a web page can greatly hinder or highlight the page’s content. Of course, this idea pertains to the text presented on a page. Having hard to read text, bad color choice, text that is too small, or text that is all concentrated in one are of a page can negatively impact a reader’s experience. However, this importance of composition and layout is also very essential to the effectiveness and meaning ascribed to images. 

One of my favorite points that Kress and Leeuwen addressed in the reading The Meaning of Composition is the idea of the “new” and the “given. Kress and Leeuwen writes, “For something to be Given means that it is presented as something the viewer already knows, as a familiar and agreed-upon point of departure for the message. For something to be New means that it is presented as something which is not yet known, or perhaps not yet agreed upon by the viewer, hence as something to which the viewer must pay special attention.”

The eye is trained to, accustomed to, and comfortable with reading from left to right. This makes sense with how the concept of Given and New images are then articulated in a composition. Something that is a Given image is often presented on the left side of a layout, while something that is New is often presented on the right side of a layout. 

Some of the examples shown in the reading were really dark because of the scanning, so I tried to find a good example on my own. Hopefully I am not too far off track! I found this article and thought it was a good, yet very basic example of this Given and New principle. 

The Proactive website opens and you see scrolling images on the left of beautiful famous people with gorgeous skin, and on the right you see the three step proactive system. The Given then is that “these women have gorgeous skin” the New is that “you can get that skin with Proactive!”

You, the Viewer, Making Meaning!

In the reading, Viewers Make Meaning, Cartwright and Sturken discuss the important and determining role that viewers play in giving an image its effective meaning. They list three ways, other then the image and the producer, that an image is given meaning:

1. the codes and conventions that structure the image and that cannot be separated from the content of the image
2. the viewers and how they interpret or experience the image
3. the contexts in which an image is exhibited and viewed

All these things listed are produced by the viewer and the environment surrounding the image and the viewer of the image. 

Another concept discussed in the article that I found very interesting was the idea of interpellation. “To be interpellated by an image, then, is to know that the image is meant for me to understand, even if I feel that my understanding is unique or goes against the grain of a meaning that seems to have been intended.” When I read this advertising was a natural thought in my mind. 

Beer commercials are always stand outs for me. I know that they often aren’t marketed towards me because I am a woman, but some of them I find highly entertaining. Beer commercials interpellate me because I know what they are intending to do even if they are not targeting me, and to some degree the effectiveness (or cleverness) of a beer commercial does convince me to buy a brand. One beer commercial that I adore is by Heineken:

BEER CLOSET COMMERCIAL

ENJOY!!!

Be Wary of the Image!

Its important to recognize that images do not equal reality. In the reading Images, Power, and Politics by Sturken and Cartwright, the point of being educated/informed and wary of looking at images is emphasized.

Images are incredibly powerful and can communicate a lot to a viewer. However, its important to remember that images/photographs are still very subjective. There are two big ways that they are:

1. The viewer's experiences and background.

2. The photographer chooses everything.

The way that everyone sees an image is very different because everyone is coming from different experiences. One great example is the example of the Confederate flag. For some people, that image is an image that evokes the ideals of heritage, pride, and Southernness. However, having not grown up in the South (and not having any Southern heritage), the image of the Confederate flag does not evoke positive emotions for me. It evokes prejudice, slavery, and racism. Neither perception of the image is "less powerful" then another, it is simply powerful in a different manner.

Confederate Flag evokes different reactions to the same image

The second thing to remember is that the photographer that takes a picture chooses when to take the picture, how to take the picture, what part of the scene to focus on, and then how to edit a photo. What that means is that a photo can't completely represent full "realism" in news/media/digital media because someone is still manipulating the image that we, the viewer, are seeing. 

This reading was of particular interest to me because I do find that when I see a picture in the news I tend to take it at face value. I often don't stop to consider all the work that went on behind the scenes with the choosing of the shot and then the manipulation of it. I, in no way, think that this "wariness" of images distracts from the potential power of images, it just requires the viewer to be a bit more informed!

Different Portrayals of Women in Sports Photography

Photographs play a very important role in the world we live in. If used effectively and properly, photographs can so brilliantly capture the motion, energy, and essence of a moment. In Framed and Mounted: Sport Through the Photographic Eye, the role that photographs can play in sports is discussed.

It is important to note that “...but merely that many techniques are available to photographers that are ethically dubious and, whatever the motives of the photographer, a framed, two-dimensional image can never be ‘the thing itself’”. Photographs are meant to convey what is going on and the motion of the situation. Photographs accompanied by good captions or articles allow the photographs to really shine.

These still shots of sports also allow for a sort of sports social memory to be developed for sports, and answer questions like:

• “Did you see that?”
• “Do you remember when”
• “What a bod?!”

Sports Illustrated was discussed a lot in the article for its highs and lows in sports photography. Sports Illustrated has done a good job at highlighting sports photography with well-written, informative, and credible articles. However, overall, the magazine has not demonstrated the most “gender-friendly” sharing of time. Very rarelely have women been put on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and even less then that is the number of times an African-American woman has appeared on the cover. When women are featured they are often featured in a overly sexualized manner. I think it is completely fine to have some sexualized photos of athletes, because lets be real, what girl would mind seeing some shirtless shots of some men soccer players. However, I think overall there needs to be a balance between the shots of powerful and athletically dominating women, and women provocatively posing for Sports Illustrated.

Non-sexualized sports photograph

Sexualized Sports Photograph

The Power of a Photograph

Quinn and Filak write about the power of an images as journalism in "Digital Still Photography". If used correctly and in an effective manner, a photograph has the ability to do all (and more) then an article or video can do. In many ways, images/still photographs are a universal language. Everyone can understand a visual image and the emotions and events that image captures, not everyone can read man article or understand the language in a video.

At one point, Quinn and Filak write, "use the power of the still image with its seeming permeance, but also harness sound and the energy of motion." When I read this, one photo immediately came to mind:

This still image shows a man standing in front of three encroaching tanks in Tiananmen Square. At this point, the Chinese military had just forcibly removed many Chinese protesters ( many of them students) from the Square the day before. The image fulfills what Quinn and Filak write about in terms of harnessing sound and energy of motion. The viewer can hear the humming if the tanks, can see the forward motion of the four tanks, and the solidarity and perseverance of the singer man. The viewer can also almost feel the tension of the situation surrounding the earlier happenings in Tiananmen.

When camera and editing technology began to flourish in the 1990s, getting to see these images (like the Tiananmen Square photo) became more frequent and accessible to viewers. Advanced equipment and the digitizing of media really opened up many possibilities and opportunities for photojournalists. As much as I appreciate reading a well-written news article, I would prefer the journalism has a well executed piece of photojournalism to accompany it.

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"Citizen Journalists"

Blogging and journalism are two things that we have discussed in length during class. We have also spent a lot of time discussing whether all bloggers are journalists. The conclusion we came to was “no.”  In Rettberg’s article, “Citizen Journalists”, he discusses the difference and similarities of the two, and when the distinction or lack there of, is important.

Rettberg points out the three ways that blogs approach journalism:

1. First-hand reports
2. Bloggers as independent journalists and opinionists
3. Gatewatching

Rettberg really strived to make the connection that mainstream media and independent blogs really rely on one another. This quote is one of my favorites from the reading, and sums up the chapter well. “Obviously, blogs are many different things. What appears to be clear, however, is the blogs need mainstream media, and that, today, the mainstream media also need blogs.”~ Rettberg

“Blogging Brands”

The combination of blogs and branding is one of the most interesting elements of blogging to me. For example, I enjoy a blog that we have talked about called Atlantic Pacific. With Atlantic Pacific, certain companies have sent her products to wear in her blog. She will then acknowledge that in her blog by putting “c/o” and then the brand name. For example: c/o J.Crew (because lets be real, if I was being sent clothes to feature on my blog, that is where I would want clothes from)!

Another way bloggers can make money blogging is when there blogs become visited enough and a popular enough blog, advertisers will pay to have their advertisements placed on their blogs. Thats right, now there is the chance that those annoying rollover advertisements could invade your favorite blog!