lunch on a skyscraper by Charles C Ebbets

this photo was taken in 1932 the photo shows 11 men eating lunch siting on a girder with their feet dangling down hundreds of feet above new York city.  this photo was taken on the 69th floor of the GE building wall it was still being constructed.  This photo represents the working community showing how people   yest to and some times still do haft to work.  the men in the photo obviously ignore wear there having there lunch as you can see the 11 men are eating a sandwich, smoking, and enjoying a well deserved brake completely unfazed that there dangling hundred of feet above the ground.  The health and safety of the work's these days are quite different from then.  People would have a hart attack  if they sore workers up on a skyscrapers without a harness.  The business would be hammed hard and the boss and work's would probably be fired as to back in 1932 wen it was perfectly all right.

Dali Atomicus by Philippe Halsman

         "Photography is, first of all, a way of seeing.   It is not seeing itself," wrote Susan Sontag.  This quote explains as you can see in this photo how Philippe Halsman sees Salvador's panting and not the way the rest of us would see it.  "The modern way of seeing is to see in fragments.  It is felt that reality is essentially unlimited, and knowledge is open-ended.  it follows that all boundaries, all unifying ideas have to be misleading, demagogic; at best, provisional; almost always, in the long run ,untrue.  To see reality in the light of certain unifying ideas has the undeniable advantage of giving shape and form to our experience.  But it also - so the modern way of seeing instructs us - denies the infinite it represses our energy, indeed our right,to remake what we wish to remake - our society, our selves.  What is liberating, we are told, is to notice more and more" wrote Susan Sontag in Philippe's photo the laws of physics does not seem to work this photo seems to escape reality showing the creativity that there is no right or wrong answers that a pitcher can be what ever you what it to be..  Philippe was trying to mimic the style of Salvador Dali's painting of a naked lady with evil cats. That is why after seven years he asked  his friend the painter Salvador Dali  if he could take the photo of him. All Salvador was asked to do in the photo was to jump up in the air - the whole process had to be done 26 times until they got the shot that they wanted.
To create this photo Philippe asked his wife, who he called his first assistant, to hold up a chair to the left of the camera. Then his second and third assistant were asked to throw the cats and a bucket of water and two boards randomly beside Salvador. He changed the camera to a low shutter speed which changed the effect of the water.
When the picture Dali Atomicus was published Philippe was told off by cats lovers.

Cindy Sherman

Fore ground - a pot and a mug
Mid ground - a cupboard and a woman
Back ground - an empty jar and dish washing liquid
Center of focus - the woman
Framing - in the kitchen, woman wearing apron, kitchen supplies
Pose - woman looking over her shoulder nervously with her hand on her stomach like she feels sick
Gaze - not looking at the camera, looking outside the frame (looking at door, someone coming in to the room or someone coming out of the room)
Expression - not happy, a little worried
Viewpoint - slightly low
Depth - the depth was shown in the foreground with the pot looking very large, background looking very light

Everything in the picture seems to come to a stereotype of where a woman's place is meant to be - in the kitchen. The hand on her stomach could mean that she is pregnant - a 50's shot of a woman's role - as a housewife and mother.  The woman is looking over her shoulder away from the camera. It appears like she is trying to hide the fact that she's glancing at something she isn't suppiosed to.  Also her kitchen space is very confined which you can see because the kitchen supplies are all clashed together making it look like a very small place.  It looks like she is not happy or comfortable as a house wife - if you look at her posture and tiny space.

The Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa as everyone should well know was drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci between 1505-1514.  The woman sitting in this portrait is said to be La Gioconda a 24 year old Florentine woman but there has been some debate that the Mona Lisa was a series of sketches Leonardo had created over time or that it was a portrait of himself.  This painting without a doubt has to be the most famous painting around.  What makes it famous is her smile so faint and mysterious that you can't pinpoint her mood and the fact that she isn't looking straight ahead like she is distracted by something in the background and you start to wonder what that is.  This by far is not like normal portraits.
Leonardo Da Vinci was interested in capturing the inner thoughts and emotional responses of the human mind. Leonardo planned to show "the emotions of the mind" by placing his sitter in a beautiful landscape and focusing on such a mysterious facial expression.
I have always been fascinated by the Mona Lisa probably because it is so different from other paintings. I never could understand peoples' fascination on her smile so I guess you could say I was always fascinated because I thought it was kind of strange (bland).

Week two poetry response

We went to see two poets and a singer. The first guys poetry kind of creeped me out because it was about people being killed and the bombing of buses and I had to catch a bus to get home and that was all I could think about but he did make one comedy poem about a pear and I liked the comedy but not the poem.
The singer was up next and I loved it. The guy could sing and I liked the songs, they sounded really good.  I loved the first song. I think it was called Goldfish.
Then we had the last poet who was a girl. I think she did hers on culture. She would speak a strong word and do a lot of hand movements to emphasize it. I didn't like all the swearing done by both poets but other than that I think all of them were really good

First week at MIT

The first day was orientation so we mostly just spoke and drew pictures about ourselves.  On the second  day we went to the horticulture department to buy New Zealand native plants to sketch.  When we returned back to school we had to draw the plant without taking the pencil of the paper which was easier than I thought it would be.  On the third day we had to do drawings where you couldn't look at the paper while you drew which I thought was hard until they asked us to draw with our eyes shut only touching the plant that was hard.  On the fourth day we read about John Wolseley afterwards we did some paintings outside with mud which I thought was kind of strange but after that we went back inside to paint with ink which was fun.  And on the fifth day I made this blog.