For your Academic Analysis, you will need to analyze at least two different photographs, one from a fellow student and one from the J. Paul Getty exhibit titled "Where We Live Now." Your essay can discuss more photographs if you'd like, but you need to focus on at least two.
As for your essay, the general topic is photograph and what it means, and each of the authors you've read (Barthes, Sontag, and Kracauer) take a different approach to that topic. Likewise, I expect each of you will take a slightly different approach in your essays.
To get started, you should ask yourself what it is about this topic that interests you. Is it the relationship between photography and time? Photography and memory? Photography and art? Photography and commemoration? Photography and identity? Photography as documentation or evidence? Photography and attention?
Once you've found your "angle," you'll want to turn that focus into an analytical thesis statement. For example, if you wanted to focus on the topic of photography and time, you should ask yourself a series of questions to get yourself started: how does photography capture a moment in time? Why is that useful? What are the limitations of such a captured moment? How can such a moment be used (by us as individuals, by historians, by corporations)?
For this post, choose the angle you'll take for your essay, and come up with a list of at least five questions you plan on answering in your essay (and you can always change your mind later).
Feel free to borrow and steal good questions from your fellow classmates. The purpose of this blog is to enable you to use your group-mind to help each of your single-minds.
Photography and memory
ReplyDelete1.What makes photography so significant for it to be captured as a memory?
2. Do we create false memories when photographs are taken and later viewed?
3.Why are some photographs remembered and others aren’t?
4. How much memory of a photographic event does an individual truly remember?
5. Why are these memories important for an individual?
Nice questions. Here are a couple more . . .
DeleteHow much can we trust our memories to represent the truth of what actually happened?
Are photographs more or less reliable than memories as documents or evidence of an event?
Photography and Memory
ReplyDelete1. Why are photographs important to an individual?
2.Does photograph ruin your memory?
3. Are mental snapshots better than a camera?
4.Could mobile devices be sweeping out memories?
5.Why can some photographs be remembered and others aren't ?
Nice work. Here's one more related to your first one . . .
DeleteWhy are memories important to an individual?
Photography and Time
ReplyDelete1. What use does photography have as a tool of conservation of time?
2. Can photography show the passing of time?
3. How can photography do this?
4. How can different methods of photography better show the passing of time? (high speed shutter, time lapse photography)
5. Is there a limitation to how much time can be presented through photography?
Nice work, Sabrina. You might even consider altered images, such as a photograph altered with Photoshop or another program. Using such software, a photograph can even show the future! (or at least one person's vision of the future)
DeletePhotography and memory
ReplyDelete1) How does photographs create a memory?
2) If a photograph is erased, will the memory be forgotten?
3) Why are most memories viewed as photographs?
4) Why do people take a photograph rather than living in the moment.
5) Do we need a photograph as evidence for a memory?
Jasmin Vega
Nice work, Jasmin. I especially like your fourth question; the idea that photography actually distances up from experiencing the event is a phenomena I've experienced myself at times. I've had to tell myself, "put down the camera, and just have fun."
DeletePhotography and memory
ReplyDelete1. How does a photograph help us tell a life story?
2. Why are people some people obsessed with capturing a moment in photo?
3. Why do photographs evoque certain feelings or emotions when we see them?
4. Are we dependent on photos to help us remember events rather than reading about them?
5. How do photographs affect our understanding of history?
Elsa, these are good questions, especially your focus on narrative/story, which can be applied at the personal, individual level as well as the larger socio-economic and historical levels.
DeletePhotography and Memory
ReplyDelete1) how can you make photoraphs out of your memories?
2) how can peple live the moment and take photograph?
3) Are people really enjoying themself as shown in a picture?
4) Why do people need picture to remind them of things?
5) How often do people see the picture they take?
Ruby Montes
Ruby, these are great questions. I especially like your third question, which brings up the whole idea of truth versus the appearance of truth: is that smile in the photograph a genuine expression of joy, or is that person just saying "cheese"?
Delete1. How does photography allow you to capture emotions or feelings that will follow the photo to represent a memory?
ReplyDelete2. How do photos manipulate emotions and feelings without changing the meaning behind that specific moment?
3. What type of memories can be captured through photography?
4. Will everyone have the same interpretation of a photo as the photographer?
5. Can a photographer adequately capture a moment in time without the direct involvement in that scene?
Diana C Montoya
Photography and Time.
ReplyDelete1. How does time and photography relate?
2.What does time have to do with photography?
3. Can you tell how long time has passed or stopped based on photographs?
4. How does a photography capture time?
5. In what ways can we see time in images or vice versa?
1. Can a photograph tell a life story?
ReplyDelete2. How do photographs evoke emotions?
3. Do we need a photograph to remind us of a memory?
4. Why are memories important to an individual?
5. Why are photographs important to an individual?
Photography and memory
ReplyDelete1. Is a photograph taken to capture the memory of the moment or emotions of the moment, or both?
2. Does every photograph hold history?
3. Does a photograph misinterpret a memory?
4. Does losing a photograph mean losing a memory?
5. Are our memories the basis of who we are as individuals captured in a photograph?
Andreina Rendon
Photograph and memory
ReplyDelete1. Why is a photograph considered important?
2. Do we need a photograph to help cherish an experience?
3. Which is more valuable, a photograph or a memory?
4. Will a memory fade if it is not captured in a photograph?
5. Can a photograph help trigger memories of past experiences that we have forgotten?
Photography and memory
ReplyDeleteCan a photograph bring up false memory?
Can a photograph tell a story?
Why are photographs important to some people?
What makes looking at a photograph cause someone to remember the event?
When viewing a photograph, what emotions does the photograph cause?
Joey, you might include "how" in your final question: "how does a photograph evoke our emotions?"
DeletePhotography and identity
ReplyDelete1.Who, what, when, where and why were these photos taken?
2. Can identity be manipulated in photographs?
3. Would we be able to identify a photo without a caption?
4. How do you interpret identity on a photo?
5. Can two identities be equal in a photograph?
6. Can identity behind a photograph prove believe?
Ooh, I like your second question. That's a good one, but you might add "how" and "why" to the equation: "how and why can photographs manipulate identity?"
DeletePhotography and Attention
ReplyDelete1. What attention does a photographer expect from his or her photo?
2. How does a photographer feel about the criticisms of critiques?
3. Why does a photo capture attention?
4. Does color alter perceptual attention?
5. Do photos enhance importance on things that do not receive attention?
Nice work, David. I like how your first two questions interrogate the relationship between the photographer and the viewer.
DeleteAngle: photography and memory
ReplyDelete1. Why are some photographs remembered and others aren’t?
2. Does the memory or meaning of a photo change with time or the various amounts you view the photo?
3. Why do individuals feel compelled to take photos rather than experiencing the event without documenting it?
4. How does a photograph tell a story and its affects on the viewer or photographer?
5. Will the memory fade if it is not capture in a photo?
Christina Orozco
photography and memory
ReplyDelete1. Do we really remember every moment we capture?
2. How can a photograph have so much memories with only one take?
3. Do we take a photograph for memory or for social media purposes?
4. can we keep the memories alive without photographs?
5. How did the people in history capture a moment?
-Faviola Gurrola
Pictures and time
ReplyDelete1. Do images become more meaningful with time?
2. Can photographs bring back not only past memories but also past emotions.
3. Do photographs take everyone back to the same time and place?
4. What use does photography have as a tool to conserve time?
5. Why do people feel the need to conserve time through photographs?
Photography and memory
ReplyDelete1. How are photographs able to represent a particular memory?
2. Is photography a good representation of that memory?
3. Do we only use photography only to capture a memory? Is it on purpose?Why do we do this?
4. Why are some photographs more engraved in our memory than others?
5. Would we still remember that particular time without a photograph to look back on?
-Maria Zamarripa
Photography & memory
ReplyDelete1. How do you know when it's the right time to take a photograph?
2. Does capturing an image during a special event that away from the real life experience?
3. When referring back to photographs and remembering the stories behind them, will those around us be able to connect with the memory as well?
4. As time passes will our memories become more meaningful than before?
Photographs & Memory
ReplyDelete1. Do we find photographs to bring up feelings every time?
2. Can photographs provide the viewer with the wrong interpretation?
3. What does it take to convey a certain emotion?
4. Are we, the photographers, able to make a specific memory surface by certain attributes of the photograph?
5. Are photographs the best way to create a highlight reel of someones life?
Photography and Commemoration
ReplyDelete1) How are photographs used to commemorate a person/event?
2) Why are photographs used as part of the commemoration process?
3) Why do people choose not to commemorate a person/event through photographs?
4) Are photographs the best way to commemorate a person/event?
5) What are the downfalls of using photographs to commemorate a person/event?
Isabel Mireles
1. What makes a photograph meaningful and how does one relate to it?
ReplyDelete2. How can photography serve as a reminder of the past?
3. Why do people use to photography to remember? Can other media be used and have the same effect?
4. Does the story and meaning of a photograph ever change? Is there a right or wrong way to interpret it?
5. Does social media and advancing technology distort the way we relate to photographs? Do we take pictures for "likes" rather than for the moment? (Smartphones and Instagram for example).
Stefano Subia
Photography and Memory
ReplyDelete1. What makes a photography significant to us?
2. Can a photo trigger more than just feelings of good memories? Can it bring painful memories too?
3. Is it easier to share a memory with loved ones when we have a photograph to connect the memory to?
4.Can someone perceive a photograph differently than another person does?
5. Without photographs, how would we share our memories or take note of things we would like to share with others?
Emily Chim