The purpose of the picture from my point of view is to show us what a music class group of students looked like in the 40's. It is to show us what life was like during that time period. Choosing school and kids as the subjects to help accomplish that was a wise choice I would say. We all know what schools and kids look like today, but back then we might not be so sure. At this point, we can compare and contrast a group of kids singing in the 1940's to a group of kids singing today.
While comparing and contrasting the two images, there are obvious similarities as well as differences. The formation of the children is quite similar in the whole riser effect. The newer picture seems more colorful and also set in more of a performance situation rather than a classroom. The boys and girls are still mixed, although the more recent photo seems heavy on girls over boys. The vectors of attention differ in the earlier image the teacher was obviously over to the side where in the more recent photo the children are all looking straight forward. I would say the biggest difference is with the expressions on the children's faces. Although from my research the kids in the 1940's picture would be living a life post war, their faces are still bright and shining even more than the kids today! The kids today don't look interested in their performance at all!
The next aspect of a statement of purpose deals with the audience. For everyone's image, the obvious audience will be our classmates and teacher, but every image goes beyond that. For my particular image, the audience would be children, adults that were children during the 40's and teachers. I think all of those people would be able to relate to the situation in the picture. Each audience member will see the image in their own way and their opinions will vary based on their previous knowledge or experience relating to this image.
The final piece to the puzzle to make a statement of purpose is context. The context of this picture is elementary school life during the 1940's. This image shows just one small piece of the whole school life during this time, but it shows a group of students in a music class which is just one example for the whole time period. After some previous research we know that the schools were very structured and that the kids would have just gone through some bad times, but they still look happy and that context within itself speaks for the minds of the children during this time.
When blogging about my picture, I am writing to an audience of my class and teacher and anyone else that may be interested or able to relate to the image. The purpose of what I write is to explain my takes on the context and purpose of the image and the audience can do what it wants from there. I will almost be role playing as if I were the photographer explaining my image as if it were my own.
