Response to print viewing

    This is a picture from Lauren Greenfield's Fast Forward, which dealt with life in the shadow of hollywood.  The woman with the bandages is the main subject and is framed by the balloons on the left and the man on her right.  The man appears to be her husband by the way they are sitting.  The balloon and the husband are wearing similar colors in similar spots, which makes the framing very nice, maybe implying an extension of him.  The pool completes the color similarity by being the man's blue shorts.  The two woman in the photograph seem to be kind of unhappy or at least kind of bored, which is odd because this seems like a scene out of a pool party.  Also the juxtaposition of the woman on the left who is alone and looks kind of frumpy and the woman with bandages who has a man beside her and nicer clothing on could be a commentary on cosmetic surgery being viewed as more beautiful.  

    The thing that first grabs my attention is the woman with the bandages on her face.  At first I thought she was a victim of domestic abuse, however I realized that she had had cosmetic surgery.  That could be hinting at the idea that cosmetic surgery is a symptom of social abuse to the self image of people.  The symmetry of the man next to her and the colors of the balloons and the pool, along with her body language, which is trying to not to take up too much space,  makes her feel claustrophobic.

    The theme of this photograph seems to be how common place cosmetic surgery is here.  Where I am from if someone had a bandage on their face like that someone would probably assume they had gotten injured in an accident and ask why they were out at a party they weren't seeming to enjoy.  The party does not seem to be too fun for both of the women in the photo, however the man seems to be enjoying himself just fine.

    I am pretty sure this photograph was created to at least imply that the beauty standard that is prevalent in hollywood applies mostly to women and men reap the benefits.  This is not only backed up by the uninterested, almost bored looks of the women, but the banal dress of the man, and the sheer unattractiveness of him show that clearly the women put much more effort into themselves than he does.

Response to War Photographer.

Response to “War Photographer”

The photos that Nachtway took of Kosovo are the most impactful to me.  The houses seem much like houses you could possibly see in here and having grown up with a lot of eastern Europeans the faces seem familiar.  However the environment they are in is completely foreign.  The blown out houses and all the men carrying assault rifles is almost as strange to me as seeing Martian landscape.  The way Nachtway walks around quietly and takes the pictures makes the whole scene feel even stranger.  When he is following the crying woman into her house, his “apartness” is very evident in this point.   While she allows him to photograph, the mechanical noise of the reflex moving is the only sound emanating from him.  This makes him seem like some kind of robot or machine further emphasizing his apartness.

 The photo of the person carrying all the scythes next to the house is one of my favorite of the Kosovo series.  It almost makes you think that there is so much death in the area that they are going to supply extra deaths with scythes.  The strange façade on the bombed out house makes the scene all the more surreal.  I feel like if I were there I would now know what to make of the whole situation.

The silently solemn strolling that Nachtway so unassumingly uses to go through these scenes of intense violence and horror is in great juxtaposition with his subject matter.  The calm way he talks about the things he has scene shows that he is either greatly disturbed or in complete control of his emotions, which one could argue is also insane.  The way he talks about what he saw in Rwanda betrays his steely exterior though showing me that he in fact is deeply affected by the events he has scene.

The image of the man with the assault rifle shooting out the window of a bedroom is also another very very good image.  The disruption of the bedroom and the man shooting out the window make what should be a comfortable room into a terrifying scene.  While you cannot see the man’s face because the gun is in the way you can tell from his stance that he is preparing to shoot at someone possibly coming to attack his place/town.  I think the image shows a strange calm before the storm, in that it seems like this man is preparing to ambush someone and the minute that happens all hell is going to break loose.  It really makes me feel like Bosnia is not a great place for a relaxing vacation.

His most famous picture of the Somali child who starved to death is terribly moving.  The position of the baby’s body makes it seem like it is begging the woman’s skirt to help it.  Without being told you would not naturally assume that the baby was dead however once you are told it change the context of the photo entirely.  Dying of hunger is something that is incredibly foreign to most Americans, a culture where we have “Dollar Menuaire” commercials and we are told that in order to be attractive we should shun eating the readily available food, or to leave half of it on the plate.  While people die of hunger in America it is not to the same scale that it happens in refugee camps or war zones where it is used a weapon to break whoever’s “enemy.”  The thought of doing that is so beyond comprehension for me that it seems like one must be pure evil.