Statement of Purpose

Everything has a purpose. Whether it be a person, a place, a thing, a word, a picture, there is a reason for it all. After pre-examining our photo and finding out some background information on it, a statement of purpose can now be formed. Since we are making the statement of purpose, it will resemble our own thoughts and could be completely different if done by another person looking at the same photo. Our book defines a statement of purpose as the following, clearer and more concrete…sense of purpose, and it explains your purpose by referring to audience and context…[it] should be detailed and specific enough to guide you through the steps of choosing a medium or mix of media, deciding strategies, and then arranging, producing, and testing what you compose” (40).

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.

Pre-Writing Assignment #3

To begin my research on this photograph, I first looked back at what info we were already given. The only bit of historical info to spring off on is that it is from October of 1940. The only other thing we know is that it was found under the categories of children singing and also classroom.

One thing I mentioned in the previous post is that the schools were segregated during this time, and we are proven that fact by looking at the picture and seeing only white children. Schools were similar in the 1940's as they are today. Although this appears to be a music class, I did some research on elementary schools and classes in general during this time period to set the stage for school overall during the 1940's.

The subjects were similar to ours today, but the teachers and classrooms were more formal and strict, different to our fun, colorful elementary school rooms today. Boys and girls played on different playgrounds during recess in most schools. To see all the kids together in this image is nice. They all seem to get along as you don't see anyone fighting. They all look pretty focused on what I assume is the teacher off to the side except for the one little girl. After the war, it was proven that people stayed in school longer to get more of an education than they did before the war.

As far as the clothing worn to school during the 1940s, the children didn't have uniforms but they dressed in nice clothing. The boys often wore clothes that were a little less fancy than a suit and the girls were almost always in dresses.



After learning more about the time period of when this image was taken, you begin to feel more knowledgeable. When you first look at a picture, you usually make up a story as to what it is and you form an opinion on it. But once you research it and know more about the time period of the picture and about the subjects in the picture, your views may change from your preconceived ideas. For me and this image, I feel more connected to the children knowing what they have just gone through with the war and I feel sympathetic towards them but also heart warmed to still see smiles on their faces.

Works Cited

"American Elementary Schools in the 1940's." 1940s Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2009.
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"Farming in the 1940s." Wessels Living History. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2009.
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"School Clothes: United States Individual Experiences." Historical Boys Clothing. N.p., 1 July 2008.
Web. 4 Oct. 2009. .

2nd Document Post

When taking a more in depth look at the picture chosen, other factors to consider are thoughts about the building and the lives of the children past this image, yet still thinking about the terms from our text such as vectors of attention and framing/cropping.

The first question to touch on is how are the children arranged? When I think back on my days in elementary school, assuming that is where this picture was taken, the structural stairs we stood on called risers come to mind. The children in this picture look semi arranged in what could be a riser structure. The shorter kids are mainly in front and it seems to be increasing with height has you move through the picture. It is definitely not as structured as one would assume for a performance, but for a practice during class, which is what I infer this picture to be, it works. There are some kids hidden but you can see a feature from all of them. Another piece with how the children are arranged is that there is no certain pattern with the genders. Boys are standing by boys and girls and vice versa. The children don't show any sense of bothersome towards their arrangement in this photo. The only child that appears to be distracted perhaps by another student is the little girl in front.

I feel like the vectors of attention and ethos kind of go hand in hand when examining photography. The vectors of attention pursue what the photographer wants the audience to see in the picture, and ethos as we know are what the audience sees in you. I touched a lot on vectors of attention in my last post, but when connecting the term with ethos, I think the audience would definitely be able to understand what the focus is to be. Without knowing the whole story on the image, the logos are kind of up in the air. We are able to create our own thoughts as to the reason for the structure and what argument it portrays. After considering the picture a few more times, I'm starting to wonder if the singing is actually taking place in a performance situation. The children all have nice little outfits on and the backdrop on the wall looks like it could have been used to set the stage in a classroom setting. The image at the top of tis blog was added because it shows what a classroom looks like during this time to help picture what the rest of the room may look like that they are in. Next, we consider the pathos. As an audience member, I appreciate being able to see this image as it expands my knowledge or feel for the 1940's. After a little more research, it made me also notice that there are only white students in the image.

Other terms from our text that are incorporated in the image's makeup are things like lighting and coloration, including hue, saturation, and brightness. The image is overall pretty dark, with just the white of the teeth shining through. The colors aren't bright, but there are colors included. I think the colors and brightness levels in images really set the overall tone. Something I found kind of interesting is that I picked an image that was color when in previous blogs I touched on how black and white images are my favorite. I decided that color would be easier to examine more with what the colors are doing for the image.

8th Blog Post

For my project I picked this image because I thought it had a lot to work with in terms of picking out pieces and identifying elements from our text. I spent lots of time going through the different pages of pictures trying to find one that I felt I could relate to and get a lot out of. My top two images were very similar in the sense that they both had lots of children and colors.

The given information on this image is that it was created/published in October of 1940 and the photographer was Russell Lee. There is not any other info given to set a story for this picture except for that it was found in the categories of classrooms and also in children singing.

The wallpaper and the children's clothing helps set the stage of the time the photo was published, or taken, which again, was 1940. The wallpaper is definitely dated and old fashioned. Also the girls are found wearing little collared, flowered dresses and the boys in overalls. I would infer that the song they would be singing an older song as well. I wish they gave a little more info about where they are located, I mean I know they said it was in a classroom but I would be curious to know if it was a music class or a practice and what they were singing.

When you look at the children's faces most look happy or just neutral. A few are smiling or else they just look pleasant. Their main feature that stands out are their eyes. The white of their eyes stands out a lot. Also the boy on the far right of the picture is smiling with teeth showing and the white of his teeth stand out as well.

From our text we learned the term "vectors of attention" which is very obvious in this image. This term talks about where the photographer wants the attention of the audience or viewers to look. If there are people in the picture usually their eyes take the direction of the focus to where the photographer wants it. If there aren't people, there is usually a specific color or object that is obviously the focal point. In this particular image, the focal point the author wants is very clear that it is to the right of the picture, or the children's left. The missing piece is what they are looking at. It is not included in the image so we have to try and infer what it could be. From the context I would assume that either the teacher is over there or something that they are reading off of is over there, such as the words to a song. They are literally all looking over there so it is definitely something important to the situation occurring. There is one little girl in the front that looks a little distracted, but yet she is still singing.

Overall, there is a lot that you can infer from just looking at this picture, but yet there are a lot of pieces missing that would clear up or make a specific story. But part of the fun is that you can make it whatever you want when you aren't given all the info.

7th Blog Post

I can't say that I know that much about photography. That doesn't mean I don't like it or that I'm not a fan of it, I just haven't had the opportunity or taken the time to become interested in learning about it. I personally enjoy looking at pictures a lot! Whether it be an artistic photograph or just a picture of me and my friends. One thing about photography though is that I think you can take an image and make it mean whatever you want to yourself regardless of what the artist was trying to portray.

One aspect of photography is the art of being the photographer. I envy people that are really good at this and take the artistic pictures. They know what objects to capture and often do it with very interesting subjects but in the end it is a great photograph. Photographers that do this have to understand the importance of lighting and spacing and obviously how to work the camera. They are specialized in that they can usually make an object turn into an artistic photograph. A gift I once received was a frame of my name being spelled out by different photos. It is so creative and I think it would be fun to go around finding the objects that make up the letters that are turned into names or words. I know that the photographer that did mine doesn't go around looking specifically for the letters, but rather just takes pictures and then turns them into something after studying it.

Although I don't have much experience with photography, I still am able to capture moments just as well. I take a lot of pictures when I'm hanging out with my friends. Working my camera isn't difficult like I presume a fancy photographers camera is. The only knowledge I have to have to use it is when to turn the flash off (although it is on auto flash) and being able to center the subjects I am taking the picture of. These pictures will in the end mean a lot to me, just like artistic photos mean a lot to other people. They each hold their own importance in peoples lives. One thing about photography that I love is the black and white option. Some pictures just look better that way!

As far as our upcoming work with photography goes, I am a bit apprehensive to say that I am confident in working with photography. Since I don't have that much knowledge with it, I am hoping that I will be able to gain more as we go along and develop more of a deeper understanding for photography.