Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Reimagining Visual Framing
I picked Sally Mann’s One Big Snake. I was drawn to the photo because of the peace necklace that the boy is wearing. It is the only thing the boy has on which causes the audience to further focus on the necklace when they examine the picture. The original photo is a MS shot of a shirtless boy who is holding some type of snake skin in his wingspan. The snake covers up his eyes, and lines up with the horizon and the upper horizontal third in the photo. Mann also uses limited space in the photo by there being a background area but because it is out of focus the attention is automatically shifted to the boy because the viewer can not see clearly what is behind him. Mann uses a lot of lines in the photo but in different directions. The horizon, snake and the boy’s arms have horizontal lines, but they intersect with the vertical line his body makes. The intersection is where the new shape is introduced. It is the peace necklace and this intersection of lines makes the circle necklace pop even more. Mann also use the necklace itself to point directly at the peace sign by using two diagonal lines. The two shapes give a contrast from the boy’s actions which are all lines and the boy’s only piece of attire, the circular necklace. I changed the picture by making it an extreme close up of just the necklace. This gives more attention to the picture but it has much less of an effect. Instead of being something that the viewers’ eyes discover it is something that is just thrown in the viewers’ face. The space becomes flat because you can’t see anything behind the boy. You also lose all the contrast between line and shapes. The circle peace necklace does not have the same importance anymore because it is not contrasting itself from anything. It is the only shape that can be seen. I think Sally Mann framed the picture like this because she wanted her audience to find what she had hidden in the picture. Of course she could have just taken an extreme close up of a peace sign but it would not have the same feel for her or the audience.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Brainwash
http://changethis.com/manifesto/66.01.Brainwashed/pdf/66.01.Brainwashed.pdf
Seth Godin talks about the fact that we have to acknowledge the lizard so we can ignore it, allowing our creativity to not be held back. Godin explains that humans like lizards fear the idea of being laughed at. When this fear takes over a person, the creative side gets shut down and society was able to do this to brainwash people into doing something. They create a fear that if you don’t do something or don’t do it their way then you will have to pay the consequences for your actions. Godin says that only way to not allow the fear to hinder our creative process is to recognize when this happens and to understand that the only way to achieve it creatively is to move past the fear. This ties in with the blog we are working on because if you fear that people will wrongfully laugh at your idea, then you are not going to be true to your creative self and you wont be able to make yourself better at what you want to do. Another topic Godin talks about is to learn. He explains that school was created to teach kids a trade, or a single skill so they can achieve one job. Now jobs are no longer like that which means that school, a helpful stepping stone, is not the last step to learning. You have to constantly learn if you want to achieve. You have to learn from other people, your success, your failures, youtube, blogs and anything else that is out there to for you to learn from. The tie in with this topic and the blog is that we learn the basics about a lot of different things in class but it is up to us to take the knowledge to the next level. We have to meet with other students, read books, talk to professors and learn from youtube how to do more advanced techniques. I feel like these ideas are very useful. There are some students who can achieve everything they want simply from school, but there are others who can’t be reached by the way school systems are set up and I believe they should teach the ideas Godin has because they can be important to any students access. Students need to learn that there is more to learning then Math and Science. At an early age kids have to know that there is more than being a scientist, doctor, lawyer or teacher. They need to be able to experience everything so that they can do what they are best fit for which will in return be more beneficial to the country’s economy.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Dr. Dre VS Ben Folds
The two songs I am going to compare and contrast is Bitches Ain’t Shit by Dr. Dre and remade by Ben Folds. Ben Folds remade the song for more of a comedic feel, unlike most artists who remade a song out of respect for the artist. The lyrics of the songs are exactly same. Ben Folds is known for taking songs and making exact lyrical replicas of songs you would not expect. Ben Folds figured he would get a more intense reaction if he stuck with the original lyrics and put it to a different instrumental piece. In Dr. Dre’s original version the song has a low pitch. The percussion in the song has a very low pitch like in most classic hip hop songs. Ben Folds, who has a much higher singing voice than Dr. Dre, also adds a piano that is played in a higher bitch. Also the drums used in the cover have a higher pitch. This gives more of a contrast between the songs, which increases the comedic element he is portraying. Dr. Dre’s song has a much more intense feel to it. The song is a very dark and violent song has Dre uses loud instrumental and vocals, with a heavy feel. Ben Fold’s version is much softer. Instead of the percussion being the main instrument, he uses is piano to give it a softer feel. He also sings it a lot quieter than Dre’s. Ben Folds is known more for his piano playing than his bands’ ability to play the drums. Still, Ben Folds will use a drum set as the driving force or to increase a song’s intensity, but Ben Folds only uses a soft drum beat in the background to give his cover even more contrast from the original. Another difference between the songs are the timbre used. Dr. Dre uses a much heavier dark overall tone through out the song to fit his dark gangster feel he uses in his hip hop songs. Also his instruments have more of a computerized affected tone to it. Ben Folds timbre is a lot more bright, which again gives it a contrast between the original song. Ben Fold’s version also has a more natural feel to it. It is more simple because it is just his vocals, a piano, and a simple drum beat which fits into his stereotypical persona. When you listen to Bitches Ain’t Shit you expect the song to be sung by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg or some other rapper. You do not expect the song to be sung by some white pop singer who plays a piano and looks like a computer geek. Ben Folds uses irony in this song and his other covers because his covers are not what the types of songs Ben Folds sings about. Finally Dr. Dre would be a more reliable narrator because Dre grew up in a poor neighborhood and had a very troubled background dealing with drugs and gangs. So when Dre sings the song a listener would expect that he has done things like this before or this is his opinion of women. Ben Folds grew up in a suburb and does not share the beliefs he is singing about. I personally prefer Ben Folds version because I enjoy the comedic value to it and I think the vocals and instruments are better in his version.
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