Christmas HDR's

But some festive in that hoe

Photo Essay

The Tyrannies of Christmas

By: Mariah Lynn Parker

Christmas is an extremely tiresome and stressful time of year. There is the Christmas parties, the presents, the lights, the family, etc., but when and why did Christmas become such a stressful time of year? Christmas hasn’t always been about the glitz and glamour; it used to be much simpler. People forget that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth. This important aspect has been pushed to the back of everyone’s mind during the holidays.

A major part of Christmas is the almighty Santa Claus that brings little children gifts on Christmas Eve. But how does Santa Claus connect to Christianity and the birth of Jesus Christ? Surprisingly, Santa Claus is not some mythical creature. He was an actual living and breathing human being. Santa Claus’s real name is Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas was born in Patara and later moved to Myra (modern Turkey), where he was elected bishop. During the era that Saint Nicholas lived in, a young woman had to had a dowry before she could be married. It’s a custom we have eliminated in our culture because we believe in the equality of women and men. Saint Nicholas wanted to help a poor nobleman with three daughters, but he wanted to do it anonymously. He did not want to be praised for his generosity. He just wanted to give for the pure joy of giving. Thus, three bags filled with gold were thrown through the nobleman’s window. However, the nobleman figured out who was the generous gift giver and any anonymous gifts were attributed to Saint Nicholas. This man was pure and good, yet he had to spend several years in prison because of his faith. Many prisoners were converted to the Christian faith by his witness. The stories of Saint Nick didn’t hit America until it was spread by the Dutch settlers.

 Santa Claus has changed dramatically through the years. Originally, he was dressed in his traditional Bishop’s robe. It wasn’t until the 20^th century that he began to be dressed in the red and white outfit in which he appears to us now in the person of his many “helpers”. In 1874, Santa Clause only had eight reindeer that pulled his sleigh until “Rudolf, the Red Nosed Reindeer” was written.

Even though Jesus is supposed to be the main star of the Christmas season, he is mostly outshined by Saint Nicholas. This is because Saint Nicholas has become the symbol of Christmas because he conveys a spirit of generosity and love, and as we remember him we too give gifts. Santa Claus has become a healthy part of the Christmas holiday because it persuades us to give, yet this has also become corrupted over the years.

Instead of giving to the poor and needy that we should during the Christmas season, we instead become greedy. The rich by more and more gifts for their family and friends and the poor are stuck with the bare minimum that churches give them. The churches donating to the poor connects the true background of what Christmas should be for everyone, to what it has become. This greediness can be shown primarily on Black Friday. Black Friday is the kickoff of the holiday season with extreme discounts and deals in stores on the day after Thanksgiving. For many people, this is a time to get serous Christmas shopping done, even before Thanksgiving Day is over. Black Friday is a major shopping holiday, but only in America. The term “Black Friday” was coined in the 1960’s to mark the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season. “Black” refers to stores moving from “red” to the “black”, back when accounting records were kept by hand and red ink indicated loss, and black a profit. Ever since the start of the modern Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been known as the unofficial start to a bustling holiday shopping season. But why did this shopping frenzy become so popular and accepted? As retailers began to realize they could draw big crowds by discounting prices, Black Friday became the day to shop, even better than those last minute Christmas sales. Some retailers put their items up for sale on the morning of Thanksgiving, or email for sale online specials to consumers days or weeks before the actual event. The most shopped for items are electronics and popular toys.  

Why is an event of running around and spending money on material items become so important? When did Christmas get so far away from Jesus? Yes, people do still go to church on Christmas and pray before Christmas dinner, but this holiday has gotten so far away from what it should be.

Another absurd tradition is Christmas lights. Christmas lights are a custom that goes back to the use of candles to decorate the Christmas tree in upper-class homes in 18^th-century Germany. Christmas tress displayed publicly and illuminated with electric lights became popular in the early 20^th century. By the mid-20^th century, it became customary to display strings of electric lights along streets and buildings. Another example of something that has nothing to do with Jesus.

Yes, all these little traditions are fun and sometimes joyful, but they are so far from the point. The United States is the worst ones that corrupted Jesus’ birthday. We use this time of the season as an excuse to buy so many things that we go into debt, to gorge ourselves and convince ourselves that we will be healthier when the new year comes around, and we tell ourselves that we don’t need to go to church but twice a year for Easter and Christmas. There should be no reason that someone feels like they are forced to go to church. The fact is that not all the people that celebrate Christmas even believe that Jesus or God exists. They do it purely for the sweets and presents. This is one of the holidays that should have never gotten corrupted in the first place.

Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birth, the one who saved us from our own sins. Yet the modern American has become so far attached from this fact. The people that don’t go to church or ever pray all year celebrate it without thinking about the true meaning of these glorious festivities. When did it change so much that instead of telling our children to be good because God is watching over us, to be good because if you aren't Santa won’t bring you gifts? When did our society become so selfish and materialistic that simply praying and living in the light of God wasn't enough to be good, but the fact that there is a possibly of not getting some temporary materialistic object is more heartbreaking. There needs to be a change. Jesus needs to be the main event, not Saint Nick, not Black Friday, not Christmas lights. Christmas should be a holiday of joy and love, not of debt and stress. If we take in God and celebrate the one person that saved all of our sins, maybe Christmas will be a little more holy and good and less stressful.

Eugene Smith

Eugene Smith is a very strong contrast, black and white photographer. He brings his images an air of life through the bright whites and the deep blacks. His images are so capturing a alluring because of their contrast. This is why he is such a great photographer by bringing out the subject by using contrast.

Photo Essay: Meth

Photo essays help to explain a story more in depth. Photo essays consist of pictures and small amounts of words that the pictures go to. Many newspapers post photo essays online. Adding photos to the news stories gives a deeper emotional meaning to the situation.

I found this photo essay of meth labs found in Kentucky. The essay was explaining what meth labs do to the society and the people around them. However, the photos made the meaning come out more than the words. 

Albelrado Morell

Tent Camera

Abelardo Morell was born in Havana, Cuba in 1948. He immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1962. Morell received his undergraduate degree in 1977 from Bow­doin College and an MFA from The Yale Uni­ver­sity School of Art in 1981. In 1997 he received an honorary degree from Bow­doin College.

Images on the Ground:

Since 1991 I have con­verted rooms into Cam­era Obscuras in order to pho­to­graph the strange and delight­ful meet­ing of the out­side world with the room’s inte­rior.

In an effort to find new ways to use this tech­nique, I have worked with my assis­tant, C.J. Heyliger, on design­ing a light proof tent which can project views of the sur­round­ing land­scape, via periscope type optics, onto the sur­face of the ground inside the tent. Inside this space I pho­to­graph the sand­wich of these two out­door real­i­ties meet­ing on the ground. Depend­ing on the qual­ity of the sur­face, these views can take on a vari­ety of painterly effects. The added use of dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy on my cam­era lets me record visual moments in a much shorter time frame– for instance I can now get clouds and peo­ple to show up in some of the photographs.

This way of observ­ing the land­scape with spe­cially equipped tents was prac­ticed by some artists in the 19th cen­tury in order to trace on paper what they saw in the land­scape. Inter­est­ingly, this approach to pic­tur­ing the land was done even before the inven­tion of photography.

My Tent-Camera lib­er­ates me to use the Cam­era Obscura tech­nique in places where it would have pre­vi­ously been impos­si­ble to work, because I now have a portable room, so to speak.

Noumena: Depression

For my noumena project I did it over depression. Depression cannot be seen. People put on a facade of depression that prevents people from seeing it, but we know that depression exists. Depression is serious and leads to suicide or self harm. People who are depressed don't show it and then one day they are gone with out their family or friends knowing why. Even though depression isn't one of the typical noumenas to use, its subtle and harmful. 

Mariah Parker

Photo III

2^nd Hour

Noumena

            Noumena is an object as it is in itself independent of the mind, as opposed to a phenomenon. In simpler terms, noumena is something that you know is there and would bet anyone anything that it exists, yet you cannot see it. The term can also be contrasted with or related to “phenomenon”. Many individuals philosophize over noumena and many philosophical systems came out of this. Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. On the other hand, “Platonism” refers to the philosophy that affirms the existence of abstract objects that can be asserted to exist in a third realm distinct both from the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness. The term may indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism or a philosophical term usually used to refer to the idea of realism regarding the existence of universals or abstract objects after the Greek philosopher Plato. The central concept of Platonism is the distinction essential to the Theory of Forms. The Theory of Forms asserts that non-material abstract forms, and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. The forms are typically described in dialogues such as the Phaedo, Symposium, and Republic as transcendent, perfect archetypes, of which objects in the everyday world are imperfect copies. The origin of Platonism was originally expressed in the dialogues of Plato.

            Much of modern philosophy has generally been skeptical of the possibility of knowledge independent of the senses, and Immanuel Kant gave this point of view its classical version, saying that the noumenal world may exist but is completely unknowable to humans. Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who widely considered being a central figure of modern philosophy. He argued that fundamental concepts structure human experience, and that reason is the source of mortality. His thought influenced metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics. One of Kant’s major works was the Critique of Pure Reason, which aimed to explain the relationship between reason and human experience. With this project, he hoped to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. Kant argued that our experiences are structured by necessary features of our minds. From his view, the mind shapes and structures experience so that all human experience shares certain essential structural features. Kant also believed that the concepts of space and time are integral to all human experience. One of Kant’s goals was to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. Empirical is a theory which states that knowledge comes only a primarily from sensory experience. Rationalism is the view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge or any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification. Kant argued that experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was a theme both of the Age of Enlightenment, and of Kant’s approaches to the various problems of philosophy. His ideas influenced many thinkers in Germany during his lifetime. He had moved philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists and empiricists. Kant is seen as a major figure in the history and development of philosophy.

            There are plenty of examples of noumena. Even though there are a bountiful amount of visible things in the world, there are also plentiful amounts of the unseen. Noumena photography is seen all over, even if it does not blatantly say that its noumena. However, there are example of noumena. For one, air is an example. We all know that air is around us. We can feel it blow against our face, and we breathe it in and out all day long. We need it to live, yet we never can hold it within our hands or see it. Air is accepted as noumena, unlike others. Religion is a huge noumena on the basis of a divine power. No one can see a God or the devil, yet many individuals believe with all their heart that they exist and that they are constantly involved with everyday life. This is where controversy settles in. Not everyone is going to be okay with believing in something or someone that they cannot see. This is why noumena is so hard to capture within an image. How do you take a picture to represent something that you cannot see? Many photographers have done this in many ways.

            Noumena has progressed through history from the first thoughts of Plato to the photographs of Anthony Carriere. Noumena has gone from being expressed through words and philosophy, to being expressed through photographs. It is amazing to think that something that can not be seen can be expressed through something that can only be seen. However, the basis behind noumena has stayed the same. It is something beautiful and mysterious, something that will never be seen or captured or fully understood no matter how hard we try.

Works Cited:

·      “Noumena – Anthony Carrier.” Noumena – Anthony Carriere”. N.P., n.d.

·      “Noumenal.” The Free Dictionary. Farlex, n.d.

·      Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 

Alexander Harding

This photo by Alexander Harding is the most about light because the entire movement in the picture is caused by the light. The way that the light interacts with the mirror is beautiful and causes a sharp movement from mirror to mirror. This focuses the viewers eye entirely on the movement of the light from object to object.

Afghan Girl

Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry

This image was taken by the journalist Steve McCurry and ended up being used as a 1985 edition of National Geographic cover. The girl in the image was later identified as Sharbat Gala who was approximately 12 years old when the image was taken. The image was taken in 1984 as the Nashir Bagh refugee camp. The image is so empowering with the bright red scarf draped around her neck and the piercing green eyes that seem to look straight at you that this image became the symbol of the 1980's problems in Afghanistan. The Afghan girl remained unnamed for 17 years until McCurry and her finally became united in 2001. Gula later got her life story posted in National Geographic. 

This image is extremely powerful. For one, the girl is so young. A "normal" image of a girl that was 12 years old would be happy and full of joy, however Gula is stern and off put. Her face and clothes look worn and tired and her eyes look wide and afraid. Her body presents that she is strong and calloused, yet her eyes show that she is young and confused. Also, the fact that her eyes, her shirt and the background are all green makes the red seem more prominent and makes the image more powerful. This image shows the struggle of what many individuals were going through in Afghanistan in the 1980's. 

Russell Lee

1. How did Russell Lee influence the medium of photography?
- Lee focused his photography on individuals that were suffering. During this era, the Great Depression was occurring a workers were stricken with bad fortune. His photography changed the medium because he documented and told a story of what was happening to these individuals or groups in order to make a change.

2. What was his style, his aesthetic?
- Russell Lee's style was social realism. His photos were real and raw.

3. What was his intent? What was he trying to do with his pictures?
- His intent was to show the world the working conditions of minors and workers who were severely influenced by the Great Depression and also used aerial photography to photograph the conditions that were occuring on the ground bellow.

4. What was the FSA?
-The Farm Security Administration. There main goal was to help improve the conditions of poor farmers and tenants life.

5. Who was one other photographer that he worked with, or that was very close to his style and intent in his generation?
- Walker Evans

"Ulysses" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

(1) Tennyson's poem is basically saying that you only live once and that you need need to seize the day and make the most of it. I think that he is saying to live life because even though the poem is about a man who has done great things and getting elderly, he still wants to do more. No one should stop living until they are dead.

(2) "It little profits that an idle king, 

      By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
      Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole     

      Unequal laws unto a savage race,

      That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me". 

     I think that Tennyson is trying to say that its unfair that he should have to stay at home with his old and barren wife, doling out punishments and rewards to the people of his kingdom when they really do not know him. 

Concert Grid

Scan Layers

To get this effect I scanned my face 3 times and my hand once. I then layered all the images together in photoshop and messed with the opacity to get the effect I wanted. Personally thought that this picture looks pretty rad. 

Lewis Hine

- Who was Lewis Hine, and what did he photograph?
Lewis Hine was an influential photographer in the early 1900's. Hine documented labor conditions and told the truth about how workers were being treated.
- How did he document his subject? What was his visual style? How did he try to make a connection with the viewer with his portraits?
Lewis Hine documented his subjects in their natural work state. He documented the reality of what working conditions in the early 1900's were like. His visual style was black and white and portraits. Most of the pictures were of individuals, either children in the field or construction workers hanging thousands of feet above the ground. He tried to make a connection with the viewer by having the subject look directly into the camera, as if they were staring right at you.
- How did he help change the world for the better?
Hine helped change the world by showing what the working conditions were in the United States in the early 1900's and his photographs became influential in changing the child labor laws in the United States. He is why there is an age on to how old you have to be to work and why we have minimum wage.

Turkey Boy

This was taken the last day my boyfriend was here before he left to Turkey. It makes me sad because I hate having him leave for 2 months every summer. 

Bruce Mozert: Underwater Photography

 BRUCE MOZERT

In the 1950's Bruce Mozert captured beautiful underwater images, with out using anything digital. 

Bruce Mozert began to do the unthinkable in the 1950's and capture candid moments of people underwater. 

Mozert strived to create an underwater camera to capture the clarity of the Silver Springs. 

Once he made a successful housing for the camera to take picture under water, he continued taking pictures of mostly women underwater for 45 years. 

His images included everyday activities such as tanning, track, mowing, talking on the phone and etc. 

His images are extremely influential because they are very difficult to capture and especially since they are all analog there has to be the right amount of light and they cannot move a lot. 

Mozert's work was ahead of his time especially with the technology he came up with. 

 I believe that Mozert's work was the start of underwater cameras and technology.