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.