The 2D Field

Zettl's article entitled "The Two Dimensional Field" explained the varying aspects and perspectives of quality filmography.  I found the article to be particularly compelling when he talked about the two main directions - horizontal and vertical.

The section about these two main directions explained the differences between shooting film horizontally and shooting it vertically.  In a similar way, the section reminded me of taking pictures in a landscape style as opposed to a portrait style.  These styles are different because they portray images from differing perspectives.

For example, a horizontal picture, or landscape style picture, is viewed as calming and serene.  Consider this example:

Notice how in this photograph, the eye immediately focuses on the horizon.  The eye follows a horizontal line, and focuses on the different elements, but mainly on the finished picture as a whole.

The picture is calming because it was taken with clean, simple, serene lines as the primary focus.

Photographs with a vertical main direction are more striking and exciting.  Consider this picture of a skyscraper, and notice where your eyes immediately focus:

In this picture, your eyes immediately look up to see the image from a vertical direction.  The upward lines are striking and interesting to look at, rather than calming and serene.

These aspects of Zettl's chapter will be very helpful to me, not only for my video project, but also for the pictures that I take for pleasure and hopefully in the future for my career.  It is important to understand the varying elements of a picture, as well as how pictures are viewed and interpreted by audiences.

The questions I would like to bring up for discussion, after reading this article, are first, whether or not these principles and picture elements are understood consciously or subconsciously by most viewers.  If so, then how did we come to find out the way they are viewed?  How has understanding how viewers look at pictures enhanced photographers' abilities to appeal to people?

Measuring Morality

Part III of Open Sky by Paul Virilio was significantly less verbose than the previous sections.  In this section, Virilio explores ideas about what he has named “Eye Lust” – in short, the various exposures humans face to all different forms of media in everyday life.

One quote that I found especially striking regarded cultural beliefs regarding visual experiences.  Virilio says on page 90, “The ban on representation in certain cultural practices and the refusal to see – women for example, in the case of Islam – is being superseded at this very moment by the cultural obligation to see, with the overexposure of the visible of the age of image animation taking over from the underexposure of the age of the written word.”

Virilio asks of this a few sentences later, “Should we avert our gaze, gingerly sneak a sidelong look, and so avoid the exploitative focus on offer?  These are so many questions which are not exclusive to aesthetics but concern equally the ethics of contemporary perception.”

These quotes are of particular interest to me because they bring about the idea that what we as humans, choose to look at, has the potential to demonstrate our ethical or moral beliefs.

That is somewhat of a heavy statement, and I believe it to be true in some cases, but it definitely is not a hard and fast statement.  For example, I love magazines – all sorts.  I subscribe to lots of “mommy magazines,” but surprisingly, one of my favorites is Cosmopolitan. 

However, whenever I tell people about my love for Cosmo, they are shocked – apparently I don’t give off a Cosmo-girl vibe, which I can’t complain about.  But just because I read Cosmo doesn’t, in my opinion, indicate anything about my moral character one way or the other – it is a magazine for women, about fashion, relationships, business-life, and much more.  It is more than the stereotype. 

ThoughSports Illustrated, I do make judgments about his character.  But is the swimsuit editions of Sports Illustrated on the same level as Cosmo?  That I can’t answer.

I must say, that when I see a man “reading” the swimsuit edition of

My questions for discussion debate whether or not what a person chooses to look at or in many cases, read, indicates positively or negatively on his or her moral character.  If it does, why?  If not, why not?  

Even More Complicated Than an Onion

In my last post, I analyzed Part I of Open Sky by Paul Virilio, and stated that I felt it presented a viewpoint that was very layered and complicated.  I used the example of an onion, using it as an analogy for the necessity of peeling information back, layer by layer.

Part II of Open Sky by Paul Virilio was no different.  On a positive note, it was less confusing to me than the first section of the work.  However, similarly to Part I, the author still seemed to present a somewhat complicated viewpoint of concepts that in my opinion, are not very complicated.

For example, take the concept of travel.

People all over the world travel every day.  People travel for business.  They travel for pleasure.  They travel on vacation with their families – spouses, significant others, children, parents.  They travel for volunteer work, like missions trips and medical assistance.  They travel to promote ideas.  They travel to participate in social movements.  They travel to create peace treaties.

While there are aspects of travel that can be considered complicated (like, who one is traveling with or where one is going, or how one is arriving at his or her destination), to overall concept of traveling is very simple.

You are here.  You are going to go somewhere else.

It is not too much more complicated than that.  Yes, there are decisions to be made, and there are probably going to be a few speed bumps in the process, but overall, you will probably reach your destination no worse for where, complete whatever your business is or your travel itinerary includes, and then go about returning to your home.

Virilio takes the essentially simple concept of travel, and complicates it, throwing in terms like “acceleration” and “real time barrier.”  I appreciate his comments on the effect of travel on global interaction and communication, but I can’t help but feel that he makes concepts much more complicated than they have to be.

What is your perspective on Virilio?  Do you appreciate his work?  Do you enjoy reading it?  Does reading his work come easily to you?  If not, why not?  Is there anything that would make it easier for you?

Complicated As an Onion

The first section of Paul Virilio’s work Open Sky was enigmatic at the very least, and downright foreign at most.  I have never encountered a reading like this, in all the  Communication Studies’ classes I have taken at Furman.

In a lot of ways, actually, Virilio’s work reminded me of an onion.

It wasn’t something that I could chop through and easily skim.  I had to peel it back, layer by layer, example by example.  Many of the vocabulary words that Virilio addressed were new to me, but the essential concepts, once I was able to sift through the layers of complicated examples, were simple.

Part I of Open Sky is an original collection of Virilio’s thoughts that are scientifically geared towards analyzing communication, specifically in terms of foreign/international communication, and the many accompanying features of it.  The author is fascinated with the instantaneous properties of global communication, and offers scientific explanations and practical examples to demonstrate them. 

For example, he says “the question is then no longer one of the global versus the local, or of the transnational versus the national . . . . it is, first and foremost, a question of the sudden temporal switch in which not only inside and outside disappear, the expanse of the political territory, but also the before and after of its duration, of its history; all that remains is a real instant over which, in the end, no one has any control.” 

The ideas and concepts he presents are fresh and innovative, and deepen concepts like international communication in a way that I have never experienced before.

I question though, why Virilio makes all these concepts so complicated.  Is it really necessary?  Are things really this complicated?

One of my other Communication Studies classes this semester, International Com certainly suggests that while interactive global communication is complicated, but not in quite the same way Virilio states.  More so, in the case of my International Com class, we have focused on the various barriers that are in the way of smooth, coherent global communication, of the issues such as decreased technological access and development for Third World Countries being primary in the inherent lack of fair, equally accessible international communication.

So my question remains whether or not all of Virilio’s terminology and examples are valid – are all of these concepts really this complicated?  Why or why not?  If these concepts really are so complicated, how can they be simplified?

Publications in Greenville

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Before and After

One of the primary blog posts in Digital Communication requires a slideshow that tells a story.  The story that I chose to tell is the effect of Greenville publications on its residents.

In Digital Communication, we also learned how to use Photoshop to edit the pictures we took, in order to use the images we took in the clearest way.  Please see my edits below!

The New York Times

Before:

After:

The Greenville News

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After:

Pace Magazine 

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After:

The Greenville Journal

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After:

Coffee Street

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After:

I was amazed at the prevalence of printed publications when I went downtown.  I was expecting to see people reading newspapers and magazines, but it was a pleasant surprise to see so many people reading local media.