Gordon Parks Photograph In the word of Gordon Parks, “I feel it is the heart, not the eyes that should determine the content of the photograph. What the eye see is its own what the heart can perceive is a very different matter” (qtd. in “Picture quotes”). Most viewer only views the images throw their eyes and they thought they could get the meaning of it. However, some photographs cannot be understood just by visual. For instance, Ice cream parlor, Blind River, Ontario captured in 1955by Parks. This photograph required the heart to be understood the narrative, messages, surprise and significant of the photograph. Parks’s photo should be Before Gordon Parks became a successful in his career of the photographer, film director, and songwriter, he has faced with many struggles. Parks, who is black, he was born on November 30, 1912, in Fort Scott, Kansas, US. He was the youngest of fifteen children in a poor farmer and he did not finish high school because his parent’s dead since he was young. This made Parks became homeless. At that year, African …show more content…
Americans were not acceptable like today, he went to school when black people were just a few and they was neglected (“Gordon Parks”). Parks sent a message to all people through CBS News: “Do not give up! No matter how difficult the thing is, just don’t give up” (Gordon Parks Interview.) This quote is such an inspiring quote to all people, who are in their hard circumstance and who came from the tough background. Just like Parks, he was surrounded by a lot of bad things; however, those difficulties did not stop Parks from being succeeded. Parks was working at many places, and the last job before he turned to be a photographer was a waiter on a train. What turned Parks from a waiter to the photographer was when Parks saw a photograph of a migrant from a worker in a magazine (“Gordon Parks). Parks realized that “Camera is a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sort of social wrongs”(qtd. in “Gordon Parks”). Among 228 photographs of Parks in Artstor, Ice cream parlor, Blind River, Ontario captured in 1955 got my attention the most because it was a unique one.
The majority of Parks photograph was about how black people has been suffering. But Ice cream parlor, was a photograph is located at one of the neighbor store in Blind River, Ontario, Canada. This photo was about two groups of white kids. the first group of kids was eating ice cream with a smile on their face but the second group of kids was full of sadness and starvation. The telephone pole located in the center divided exactly these two groups of kids. The central focus in this photograph was the Ice Cream; it was a sign of rich and poor kids. It told how the life of poor kids and rich kids distinguished. For instance, the first group was busying with their hand holding ice cream but the second group were using their hand to stop their mouth-watering of Ice Cream
(Parks). The surprise in this picture was the color, even though it is a black and white picture. The second group was brighter than the first group, which showed that that artist wants the audience to get more attention in the second group (without ice cream). Another surprise in this photo was the height of the kids; it is from shortest to tallest just like the stairway (Parks). It is amazing because the picture was taken without knowing from the kid. As an audience from today world, the message of this photograph was, we all were born as the same human, but each of us has a different life. People were treated differently, not only their skin color matter yet their classes. We can see the different between those two kids because one was in high class, so they can have ice cream and another group was stand on another side separate from the one with ice cream and all they can do was looking at ice cream and mouth-watering. It is such a touch photograph because kids should not be treated this way. They all deserved better than this. Back in 1955, the message of this picture was, parents should not leave their kids along the street or they will be in the same situation as the second group, who were starving and sad. The expression of the kids without the ice creams were not only because of starving for ice cream but there was a story behind it. In 1955, there were more than 100,000 neglected and orphaned street children were sent to Canada from Britain with 70,000 arriving in Ontario alone. Children were abandoned to the streets, placed as apprentices or expected to work long hours in unsanitary factory conditions (History of Child Welfare in Ontario). Those kids without ice cream were actually homeless and there was not because of irresponsible of parents but because they met economic depression. A photograph cannot just be easily understood if we are not willing to understand it. Both visualize and feeling are needed to clarify a picture. Ice cream parlor, Blind River, Ontario captured in 1955 mean more than just a group of kid were satisfy about their ice cream and another group was starving of ice cream. It is about kids back then was neglected and homeless due to economic depression. They cannot even afford a cone of ice cream. When will the poverty end? Why there are many billionaires but at the same time, the number of poverty people increase?
For Emerson, the reticent beauty of nature was the motivator. To him, photography should be recognized because its still-life beauty was able to persuade the public’s appreciation of the life and nourishment
Distinctively visual allows one to explore the ways images are created through the use of visual and literary techniques. The Australian bush is a harsh, dangerous and lonely land with no one around for miles. Henry Lawson clearly identifies this as he highlights the difficulty and consequences if one doesn’t adapt to it. The prescribed texts ‘The Drover’s Wife’, ‘In a Dry Season’ and ‘The Bush Undertaker’ by Henry Lawson and related material ‘Spelling Father’ by Marshall Davis-Jones as well as ‘Australia’ directed by Baz Luhrmann paint an image of what is normal for someone in their position as well as what they need to be. This can be seen through the concepts love for the family, the harsh Australian environment and the eccentric minds stereotypically found in the bush.
Relocating to Harlem, Parks continued to document city images and characters while working in the fashion industry. His 1948 photographic essay on a Harlem gang leader won Parks a position as a staff photographer for LIFE magazine, the nation's highest-circulation photographic publication. Parks held this position for 20 years, producing photographs on subjects including fashion, sports and entertainment as well as poverty and racial segregation. He was also took portraits of African-American leaders, including Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and Muhammad Ali.
Having such an image before our eyes, often we fail to recognize the message it is trying to display from a certain point of view. Through Clark’s statement, it is evident that a photograph holds a graphic message, which mirrors the representation of our way of thinking with the world sights, which therefore engages other
Emory Douglas was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, until 1951 when he and his mother relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. At the time San Francisco was the hub of African American organizations that arranged events aimed at overthrowing the social injustices within the Bay Area’s black communities. As a minor immersed within the community Douglas became captivated by Charles Wilbert White, an African American social realist artist whom created various monochrome sketches and paintings, “transforming American scenes into iconic modernist narratives.” Not long after, Douglas was incarcerated at the Youth Training School in Ontario, California where he spent countless hours working in the penitentiary’s printery. It was not until the mid-1960’s when Douglas registered in the City College of San Francisco, majoring in commercial art and graphic design. Soon after, Douglas went to a Black Panthers rally, where he encountered Bobby Seale and Huey Newton; during ...
It’s his compassion for his subjects and his commitment to them that surpasses the act of making a pretty picture. Spending days with his subjects in the slums of Harlem or the hardly developed mountains of West Virginia, he immerses himself into the frequently bitter life of his next award-winning photo. Often including word for word text of testimonials recorded by junkies and destitute farmers, Richards is able to provide an unbiased portrayal. All he has done is to select and make us look at the faces of the ignored, opinions and reactions left to be made by the viewer. Have you ever been at the beach safely shielded by a dark pair of sunglasses and just watched?
I glance amusedly at the photo placed before me. The bright and smiling faces of my family stare back me, their expressions depicting complete happiness. My mind drifted back to the events of the day that the photo was taken. It was Memorial Day and so, in the spirit of tradition my large extended family had gathered at the grave of my great grandparents. The day was hot and I had begged my mother to let me join my friends at the pool. However, my mother had refused. Inconsolable, I spent most of the day moping about sulkily. The time came for a group picture and so my grandmother arranged us all just so and then turned to me saying, "You'd better smile Emma or you'll look back at this and never forgive yourself." Eager to please and knowing she would never let it go if I didn't, I plastered on a dazzling smile. One might say a picture is worth a thousand words. However, who is to say they are the accurate or right words? During the 1930s, photographers were hired by the FSA to photograph the events of the Great Depression. These photographers used their images, posed or accurate, to sway public opinion concerning the era. Their work displayed an attempt to fulfill the need to document what was taking place and the desire to influence what needed to be done.
This photo had global ramifications, and as what is arguably the most famous cover photo in journalism, it opened the world’s eyes to the soul and struggle of the afghan people during a time of war and suppression. The young girl is the center of the frame. Her eyes are the main focus of the image, speaking to the audience about the horrific things she has been through during the soviet occupation. Her eyes are the primary center of the photo, dim green on the outside and blurring internal to a light hazel. Something is past her eyes; her intense soul appears to pierce through to your own. Her eyes look where it counts into your extremely center, requesting understanding. Those eyes are a cry for help to let everyone know what the Soviet Union did to her people. Her innocence, although damaged, can still be seen peaking through her bright eyes. A green foundation complements her green eyes. Her dark hair is brushed far from her eyes with just a solitary strand falling over her cleared out eye. Her skin is tanned from spending her days in the sun and is marginally grimy. The lighting is low and delicate, strengthening and bringing on her eyes to pop. The sun is behind the camera shedding her face for the most part in the light. The left half of her face is faintly darker than the rest, making one accept that the sun was to one side. The green working behind her serves as an edge that matches the external edge of her green eyes, adding to their
Gordon Park’s portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton Sr. (pictured above) is unlike most of the images associated with the civil rights movement. Although the subject matter is neither noteworthy nor historical, it had an important purpose in the movement. The portrait was one of twenty images the made up “The Restraints: Open and Hidden,” a photo-essay documenting the everyday life of one extended black family, that appeared in the September 1956 issue of Life magazine. However plain or simple the image seemed, Parks, a civil rights photographer, understood the inherent importance of such portraits as a forceful “weapon of choice”(). Write about its intended purpose of empathy.
Booker T. Washington was one of the most influential African American writers on the issue of racial discrimination and freedom for African Americans. Washington was born in Franklin County, Virginia, not knowing his father. He described his growing up as the most “miserable, desolate, and discouraging environment” (570). In his speech for freedom, Washington suggested that the best way to ensure progress is for white people to allow people of color to work their way upwards. After his speech, “African Americans embraced Washington as their champion and adopted his autobiography, Up from Slavery as their guide to a better future” (570).
The illustration #5.2, Fire in the Ames Mills, Oswego, Ny by George N. Barnard is an image about a burning building in Oswego, where it captured the tragedy up close to observe every last detail for American news purposes. As for the image #6.9, Sir John Herschel by Julia Margaret Cameron's portrait of a elderly man whose face is highly sharp and precise because taken by a daguerreotype which the purpose was to capture the person’s essence by approaching closely to the subject. She believes in exposing the individual's expressions to create large facial portraits for the qualities that the subject has to offer. As for Barnard, he only wanted to record what was happening during the moment and being able to document live situations involving
Although this may seem very similar to seeing whiteness, looking at how whiteness is normalized take the understanding one step deeper. By examining how whiteness is normalized in a society, the audience begins to get a small glimpse at how whiteness can be challenged. This concept is first addressed in The Place of Whiteness at the Table in the subchapter Service Wednesday, which looks at how whiteness and whiteness’s position of power can be so common that they are seen as normal through everyday life. Next, Ice Carnival and The Great Minnesotan Get Together (Fried and on a Stick) address this concept at a macro level by looking at how whiteness can be equated with Minnesotan(ness) or American(ness). The Great Minnesotan Get Together (Fried and on a Stick) in particular looks at how whiteness is equated with American(ness) particular through fair food like cheese curds, corndogs, and fried onions.
John Berger presents a multifaceted argument regarding art, its interpretations, and the various ways of seeing. Berger asserts that there is gap between the image that the subject sees and the one that was originally painted by the artist. Many factors influence the meaning of the image to the subject and those factors are unique to the subject themselves. Seeing is not simply a mechanical function but an interactive one. Even the vocabulary is subject to specialized scrutiny by Berger; an image is a reproduction of an original product, while only the product itself may truly be a ‘painting’. Images are seen at an arbitrary location and circumstance – they are different for everyone – while the product, which is in one place, is experienced
Photojournalism plays a critical role in the way we capture and understand the reality of a particular moment in time. As a way of documenting history, the ability to create meaning through images contributes to a transparent media through exacting the truth of a moment. By capturing the surreal world and presenting it in a narrative that is relatable to its audience, allows the image to create a fair and accurate representation of reality.
"A picture can paint a thousand words." I found the one picture in my mind that does paint a thousand words and more. It was a couple of weeks ago when I saw this picture in the writing center; the writing center is part of State College. The beautiful colors caught my eye. I was so enchanted by the painting, I lost the group I was with. When I heard about the observation essay, where we have to write about a person or thing in the city that catches your eye. I knew right away that I wanted to write about the painting. I don’t know why, but I felt that the painting was describing the way I felt at that moment.