My Picture That Lies

In creating the image above, I chose to manipulate two photographs to depict a new scene. These two photographs, downloaded from the Internet, depicted completely different images and were not related when I found them. The first was of an Islamic Mosque in the setting sun, and the other of an American soldier shooting at an unidentified target. I created this picture by inserting the soldier and adjusting the hue, saturation, and brightness of that picture to appear as though he is shooting in front of the Mosque. I blurred the background image of the Mosque, along with adjusting its hue, saturation, and brightness.

This image now conveys a different message. No longer a beautiful landscape or an action shot depicting a soldier during target practice, this image now depicts war and a clash of cultures. Here is a soldier fighting with a sacred, religious icon vividly visible in the background.

I chose to create this image because it tied in with the image I chose to analyze earlier in the semester, which was that of an American soldier and Iraqi man. In that photograph, the image of the soldier was added to the image of the Iraqi citizens. I performed similar adjustments in creating this scene, along with making adjustments for lighting, etc.

Images created or manipulated in times of war are often used as propaganda, and I feel that such use is harmful. It conveys emotions that may not by true and events that may not have even occured using fabricated scenes, as is true of the fabricated evidence used in the scientific paper to falsly depict results, the image I analyzed earlier in the semester, and the image I created, depicted above. In my opinion, such manipulation is always harmful because it decieves, even if the initial intentions of the creator were not malicious.

PowerPoint Presentations

I really enjoyed all of the PowerPoint presentations we heard on Tuesday, but Aubrey and Monica’s presentations really stood out to me. Both used very creative designs, and maintained a consistent format throughout the entire presentation. In addition, these formats were fitted to the particular theme or topic of the presentation. Aubrey’s background was very colorful, which I thought tied in nicely with both the complex nature of people’s personalities and the interesting color format of the test results following administration of the personality evaluation. Monica used objects very well, employing them especially well to illustrate the various photography techniques she was showing us. I also just enjoyed the photos—her friend is a talented photographer!
Aside from the format of the presentation, both Monica and Aubrey picked specific and interesting facets of their potential area of study. By doing so, they were able to thoroughly explain this aspect rather than vaguely touching on many different aspects of a larger topic. Personally, I love photography and am always looking for some helpful tips, so learning more about framing and the thirds rule was very interesting for me. I have also always wanted to take some kind of personality test, and was curious about how the results were determined and analyzed.
Both presentations had very personal aspects. Monica used some of her friend’s photographs for her images and included a nice acknowledgement at the end. It was interesting to see the techniques applied to actual photos to illustrate how they are really used by photographers. Aubrey included her own personality test results, which were interesting to look at as an actual example.