Santa Monica

This picture is called 'Santa Monica' and is also by Lee Friedlander. In comparison to the image 'New York City,' the way the glass in front of the mannequin is used is very different. Instead of making it seem like the mannequin is out and about, the mannequin is clearly behind glass. The reflection shows the camera and the photographer. You can't quite make out what the mannequin is wearing in this picture, because the reflected image is much stronger in front of the mannequin than what is actually behind the glass.

New York City

This picture is called 'New York City' and is by Lee Friedlander. This shows a mannequin in New York City. It seems that the skyline is a reflection of the glass in front of the mannequin, judging by the glare on parts of the image. It is at such an angle, though, that one could almost thing that the mannequin is just standing in the street, like a person would. I like the contrast in this image. There is a lot of gray, but there are many different shades so that it is not boring.

I Felt a Funeral in My Brain

This photograph is called 'I Felt a Funeral in my Brain' by Rosalind Fox Solomon. This image is at a checkpoint in Palestine. You can see the emotion on the woman's face, even though half of it is covered by her hand. The bottom half of the face in the poster is covered by her other hand, which I think is an interesting, if accidental, coincidence. There are reflections of more people in the surface of the building the woman is next to. The arrow behind her seem to be pointing in the way she should be going.

Mirror, Glass, Water and Wine

This picture is called 'Mirror, Glass, Water and Wine' by Abelardo Morell. This image shows a glass full of what appears to be water in the foreground. Then, there is a mirror and two separate reflections. The one on the left copies the glass as it is and the one on the right shows the glass with a darker substances, presumably wine, in it. The ground in the mirror image of the side with the wine is reflected in the opposite direction than it should be, looking like it is a reflection of the reflection of the glass. It is a very symmetrical picture, but the small differences within the mirror are interesting. The grain of the floor also makes it a bit more appealing than if the grain had been sideways or straight on.

Ward 81

This picture is one from Mary Ellen Mark's 'Ward 81', a project that took place in a high security ward for women. Of all of the pictures from this project that I looked at while working on my paper, this was one of them that drew my attention the most. It is clearly a girl sitting on her bed in her room, a picture that isn't always inside of a high security ward. What I find interesting is the contrast between the walls. One wall says 'I wish to die' while the other wall is decorated in art and things that the girl, presumably Brenda, relates to. She doesn't look happy, but she doesn't look too distressed either. It seems like Mary Ellen Mark got to know the girl a bit before photograhing her, since bedrooms can really be a personal place. The walls of someone's bedroom are generally a good way to get some insight into who the person is. The girl is pretty much centered in the photo, but the corner between the two walls gives the photo more depth than it could have had. There is quite a bit of contrast in this picture, and it makes it easy for diferent aspects of the photograph to stand out.

Two Ostriches

This is an untitled picture of two ostriches taken by the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. One of the things that caught my eye about this picture is that the eggs are so much whiter than anything else. There are other white areas of the picture, like some of the feathers on the one ostrich, but they are dim compared to the eggs. Most of the things in the picture are different shades of gray, creating almost a uniformity. I like how the sky looks, though, with the different shades of gray going to black. There are clouds too, though they aren't as white as one would expect clouds to be. It seems that the eggs were made to stand out the most on purpose. Looking at it again, there looks to be a third ostrich, a baby one, standing next to the adult ostrich standing closer to the camera.

Moray Eel

I know this one isn't traditional photography, but it was on the MOPA website among other photographs. It is a picture of moray eels under an x-ray, taken by digital radiograph by Sandra J. Raredon. I think this is really cool because it shows what is under the skin of these eels. The bones are very detailed and you can see just how many tiny moving parts make up the animals. I think this is really cool because I am very into science and knowing how things work. Neither of the two eels are completely centered in the picture, which I think is interesting. The head and tail of the one are in the center, but the majority of it's body is off to the side. I know this is more due to the movement of the eels than to any conscious choice, but it is still interesting. The skulls of the eels and their tiny teeth are a little scary. If they were larger than the size they are I would not want to encounter one. I also think it is cool how the outline of the skin of the eel can still be seen, so we can get a sense of what exists on the outside of their bones.

Coast Guard Helicopter during take-off, New Jersey

This picture is called "Coast Guard Helicopter during take-off, New Jersey" and it was taken by Andreas Feininger. I think it is really cool how you can see the path the helicopter took by looking at the path left by the blades. It is clear that the take-off motion isn't as straight as it may look. You can also see that the helicopter had been on the ground for a while before taking off; the body of it is visible on the ground and the blades are a bit more solid. Otherwise, you can see the outlines of where the blades flew in circular motions, but there are no more outlines of the main body of the helicopter. The two main pathway lines going straight up are both off-center, drawing attention more to the edges of the picture. There is a white spot in the bottom right corner. I like the spot that looks like the moon.

Cutting The Card Quickly

The photo above is titled 'Cutting the Card Quickly' and is by Harold Edgerton. What caught my eye about this photograph is that it looks like a single frame taken from a slow-motion video. It is implied that the bullet went through the card and that is why the card is cut in half. The division of the card is not perfect, as seen by some extra bits in the middle. I've always been interested in images like this, that slow down or stop things so we can make observations that are usually unable to be seen by the naked eye. The colors of the card are very bright in contrast to the background and the bullet. I find my eye gets drawn to the card before anything else. I also like how nothing is centered, both the card and the bullet are close to a third of the way through the picture, though different thirds. The background is just a blur of color. It's very calm, despite the violent way the card must have been torn.

Devon Dream

The picture, called Devon Dream by Tim Walker, shows what seems to be an old house – maybe a farmhouse –surrounded by a large amount of open area. It is white with a dark roof. A movie is playing on it. The movie has a man and a woman on screen; it seems to be in black and white. There are two or three other buildings nearby.  They seem to be connected to the main house. They are dark and boring. The house seems to be somewhere higher up, since a wide area can be seen in the distance in the space around the house. Maybe it’s in the mountains somewhere, or maybe it is just on a large hill. It is dark, but still light enough for the surroundings to be seen. It seems like the sun is setting. There are a bunch of people sitting in the grass around the house. They could be a family, maybe not. There is also a bicycle in the grass with them. Three of the people are sitting, two are standing. They look like they are pretty young. The grass is really long. Every time I look at it I see something else I didn’t notice.  The feel of this photograph is very calm. It seems like a scene that happens on a regular basis, but isn’t something that gets old. I like the color scheme.

Zoe Strauss Exhibit

The first exhibit we went to on our trip was a collection of Zoe Strauss photographs that showed the effects of storms and other disasters on people and the environment. Many of the pictures featured images of the damages done on homes and towns by the storms. Some of the wreckages had writing pleading for help, and I felt that that was very powerful. The wreckages had once been where people lived and made their money. Some of the wreckages were homes, others were buisnesses. Some of the pictures showed the effects of the storms on the environment. One of the disasters that had been focused on was an oil spill. Another was Hurricane Sandy. I was drawn to the Hurricane Sandy pictures because it was a disaster that had caused damage that affected me personally. While Pennsylvania had mostly rain, the New Jersey coast had extensive damages. When I visited the shore after the storm, so much had been changed. The photo above was one of them that was in the exhibit. It is called No One Keeps Us Down and it was taken in Tom's River, New Jersey. It is a picture of a highway sigh. Similar pictures also were around it. One said 'Jersey Strong' and another said 'This Is Our Hometown.' These images showed the fighting spirit of New Jersey to survive and rebuild the storm. They showed how people had hope. Hope is a good thing to have especially in the case of disasters that change things for the worse and cause people to struggle for a while. But things can change for the better if you work for it and have hope. Things will improve if you don't give up.

Photography of Black Photographers

The second exhibit we went to on our trip was an exploration in the history of photographs by black photographers. Pictures ranged from the precursors of photography to modern photography. It was really cool seeing all of the photographs. A lot of them were in black and white, so there was a sense of knowing what had happened in order for the pictures to get to a place where they could be seen by people. I thought that that was cool. One of the pictures in the exhibit can be seen above. It is by Gerald Cyrus, and the title is Lovers and Others. The picture was taken at St. Nick's Pup, in Harlem, NYC in 1995. I liked this picture because it is probably a common scene and it captures a moment that many people wouldn't even think important enough to take a snapshot of. Several of the other photographs in the exhibit were like that, while other pictures seemed very planned out and modeled for. The older photographs were often portraits or pictures of authors for the inside pages of the books they wrote. I thought that that was interesting because only some books today have a picture of the author in them and if they do they are rather small. Overall, I felt like the display represented the growth and change of society while some of the ideas remain the same.

The picture I chose to observe was Roy Lichtenstein's "Sandwich and Soda." I chose this picture because I was going to the Berman today and realized that it was closed on Mondays. I distinctly remember seeing this image in the museum when I was there last time, as it had stood out to me for some reason. I think the contrast between the colors and the white where what really stood out the most. The simple image of a sandwich and a drink is not normally that interesting to look at but the background makes it pop. The white of the objects in the image stand out a lot from the background. What I notice first out of the picture is the cup, which is about a third of the way over on the right. The line of the straw is almost a third of the way up the image. Nothing is really focused on the middle of the image, which was probably very intentional because things look more appealing when the are slightly off center. The more I looked at it the more hungry I got, probably because I hadn't eaten lunch yet. There are not too many details, but there are enough to get a sense of texture in the sandwich, the soda, and the straw wrapper, which keeps the image from being boring to look at.