Sunday, November 16, 2008

Margaret's Photos

Let the linkage ensue.

This above is a link to a facebook photo album. No, you do not need a facebook to follow it. It'll work for anybody as long as you have the internet which you obviously do if you're reading this.

Incidently, I'm typing this in notepad. Because Mozilla decdied that whenever I typed it would look something like this:

tltilwekot:siht ekil gnihems ool dluow ti deypt I revenh taht dedicded lazoM esuaceB .dapeton ni sih gnipyt m'I ,ynedcnI

That was me just typing the last legible sentance over again. It's some weird mixture of going to the left instead of the right while typing and occasionally going to the right regardless. Anybody have any idea why it's doing that? (It was unbelievably difficult to get the title right, too. Because spaces changes it. Besides the random changes. BAH I say, bah.)

But anyway. If you have a facebook, feel free to comment on individual photos there. If you don't or you don't want to or you don't care, feel free to make any comments you have about them here. Individual photos or the entire thing. Either way, either way.
Cheers-

12 comments:

martitr said...

Of course you'll have to look at home because our school won't allow you to access Facebook!

A Songbird Who Sings said...

First of all, excellent photos! You lied, though, you said there was 20. XD
I like how almost none of your photos show the entire face of the people you photograph, and the one that does is given that wash-out effect. It gives me the impression of Meursault's disconnection from himself and from others who should be important, like his mother. The latter photo, that shows Spencer's washed-out face, with the quote about Meursault feeling like he could start over again, is oddly bittersweet, since he can't, really. One of my favorites is your "dead Arab" shot. The red tint definitely gives the impression of spilled blood, and I like your use of the hair. It covers even more of the face than in the mother photos, which, to me, emphasizes the total anonymity of the Arab.
I also like your blurred full-body shot of Spencer, and especially the quote you chose for it. It really shows that all people are alike in the really big picture, and will all eventually meet the same end. The blur effect really helps to convey that it could be a shot of anyone at all, not just Meursault.

This post is subject to future editing until the due date is past. I just wanted to put all this down now, before I forget it.

halfnickel said...

Marge i really loved your photos, you were really creative with the way you used the light. Also, i really loved the pic of spencer where his face is all white and you can't see his human features. I think you did a great job with this pic because i sort of see it as how Mersault doesn't really show human emotions and spencer doesn't have a face...? yeah. i liked it.

Spence said...

marge, i your photo album is superhb. i liked how your photos werent literal but symbolic. its wasnt like this is a icutre of a girl because maesault had a girlfriend. instead the pitures were abstract and there meaning wasnt obvious. there are certain pictures that are particularly good like the one of the light wich was taken in such a way that it looks like an glarring beam of sunlight. it creates the sensation that meursault must have been feeling before he killed the arab. other pictures i liked was the one with my face blurred out. its shows a man with no face and no emotion which obviously dpeicts meursaults character.

Spence said...

another photo i really liked was the flag pole. first of all the picture itself looks great becuase of the angle you took it from also i liked how it described how meursault cant reach what he wants.
the quotes match the pictures in a very creative manner. GOOD JOB.

Esbee D.B. said...

I would start with the usual "blah blah so amazing stuff" but I've told you before that you're a great photographer - SO. Let's get to the specifics, because you're ridiculous and have 19 photos.

#4 - I really like how you managed to get the outlines of the image with the light blasting through - yes, it fits the quote perfectly, but it's just an excellent shot in itself.

#6 - This is definitely a personal favorite. The way you present the flag is just so cruel and stark - not at all like the usual images we have of it. It fits in perfectly with the line, the cruel sarcasm as he says it'd be a shame to kill the Arab. They have their ethics, their personal morality put on mostly for show. They don't actually believe in it - as you said, it's an ideal, but it's too high up for wicked men like them to reach.

#7 - I really love the way it looks like Meaghan is bleeding out her essence, but not actual blood. It's amazing you got that shot without any shop work. Also, it should totally be Meaghan's profile shot, no?

#19 - The greyscale really reflects the novel's portrayal of Meursault. Is he right? Is he wrong? Is he good? Is he bad? Is he nothing? While I lean more towards the book thinking he's right, it still is really left up to reader interpretation. The expression given by the shadowing is also very interesting - sort of smug, like he knows that he is right and that people are just too selfish and stupid to see it, which is very much like Meursault at the end of the novel.

martitr said...

Last shot -- probably my least favorite (sorry Spencer) but Sarah's comment was interesting. The black and white fuzzes him up a bit too and makes it seem like he's fading away -- kind of ironic considering the quote but that's what makes it more interesting. Life is not what we think it is. It's only free when we give up hope and accept death.

jewill13 said...

Okay, so first of all, a couple weeks ago Mozilla did that to me. With the backwards typing. And then my computer died. And then my mother, who is amazing, fixed it all by destroying my computer and then resurrecting it. I love her very much.

Anyways, QA-ness:

I think it's interesting how you used several sets of similar photos (the first two, the second two, the two hair ones). And your lack of photo shopping (unlike everyone else). However, your photos made a statement on their own, without any added changes.

The fourteenth photo of the grate was a perfect (if literal) fit for the quote. But its more than that - Meursault sees the opportunities of the outside world, but he cannot touch or reach them.

Fifteenth photo: anecdote time! In eighth grade we read "War of the Worlds" and decided that if a character had no emotions, then he obviously had no face. Case in point. It has some truth in it though: no one cares about Meursault's face because it just doesn't matter.

Eighteenth photo: don't kill my Sarah because she has blurry pictures, dear. However, the blurriness does attempt to denote the universality of the "privileged class of men."

martitr said...

Jennie -- what do you mean about her 18th photo? Not sure I get the blurriness/universality connection. Please enlighten me.

The first thing I noticed about the photos was that a lot of them address the theme of illumination. Things are shadowy or illuminated in both the quotes and pictures. More on this later when I can access the images (I'm at school now).

halfnickel said...

again, im reposting because i want to "beef up" my comments. i'm very proud of you for making such great use of the schpool; for example i never would have thought to use the underneath of the bleachers; it was fantastic and extremely creative; im proud of tyou, mon petite chou. also i think it went well with that quote because it emphasized how he is feeling "trapped".... (i hope im tihnking of the right quote!)
good job

martitr said...

I like the side-by-side flourescent lights with different degrees of brightness and the accompanying quotes which reflect them. They seem to emphasize the physical -- he's blinded, things are etched on his eyes. The quotes and pictures give the impression of a physical blow which is perhaps what the murder is. It's the things that knocks him on the head and makes him realize how he's been living his life. Your other light picture (looks kinda like an inverted drain to me) also ties into this idea -- his actions have illuminated him in a way that makes him pop out and a way that distinguishes from others "in the shadows." His life circulates around this focal point of light, the murder. Light represents not the traditional beacon of guiding light but a physical force of nature which demands that all reality (or at least Merseult's) conform to it. Ah, perhaps I wax a little too abstract and philosophical but I started out there describing a real reaction on my part....

Your green and yellow blur is somehow similar. It gives the impression of a physical force out of control and the quote suggests the same. He's lost the simple pleasures of the life he had but there's also a weakness implied in that former life and a power implied in this new one. This quote reminds me of Thoreau's line from Walden about the great majority of men living lives of "quiet desperation." And it's his former, simple, unexamined life that is the one of quiet desperation despite the fact that he is now a condemned man. This spinning blur and these blinding lights also call to mind more eastern philosophies -- the letting go of desire which is freeing in some ways. I suppose one could argue (and many probably do) that he's not letting go of desire but being hurled, powerless into the abyss. I really don't think that was Camus' intention though. He is freed by his imprisonment.

Now -- Faceless Spencer and blurry Spencer. I don't actually see a lot of connections between the two so I'll start with blurry Spencer because it connects with the above ramblings. He's turned away, walking toward his fate, not well-defined because all are destined for the same fate (don't open the closet door of doom!). Why doesn't faceless Spencer have time for things that do not interest him? Hmmmm....I love the picture as representative of Merseult overall --someone who is not well-defined because he chooses not to be. He chooses not to be because he sees all as vanity. To commit to something is to believe it has meaning, which I don't think he does. Or at least nothing is more meaningful than anything else and he sees the imposition of meaning as arbitrary or perhaps circumstantial (the sun, his mother's death).

martitr said...

OK -- I guess I can't finish without commenting on the hair pictures, both of which I think are cool from a purely compositional point of view. The quote about the four shots is pretty blunt but the interesting part is the last part about it leaving no mark. I will obsessively tie it together with my previous comments and say that it leaves no mark because nothing has meaning once it is gone. Of course, this picture is marked by its red aura so his bullets may not leave a mark but he is encompassed by what he does and his fate is sealed by it. The red represents this to me. It's not a specific wound but an all-encompassing "aura" (for lack of a better word).
Then there's your hair -- are rather jumbled mass in this picture (of course generally gorgeous and well-tamed in real life!). the quote tells us that speculative possibilities, abstract certainties are not worth the most trivial physical reality. Physical reality is messy and complicated (like your hair in this picture), but something real unlike the priests metaphysical "certainties." Personally, I'm kind of a fan of the metaphysical "certainty" but that's just me...