Category: Coursework


A literary visitor strolls in from the airport is a article from the New York times by Charles Mcgrath. It talks about Will Self and his new novel but most importantly his travel to New York and his experiences. Unlike most people Self likes to walk rather than taking mass transportation, Self’s reasoning behind this is that in a post-industrial age walking is one of the very few forms of exploration that still exist.  Self’s walks are not only for exploration but for relaxation as he states that it keeps him away from drugs and alcohol and the pleasure that he gets from it is much greater than what drugs have ever given. Self also talks about what he sees and smells such as the “afflatus of the city’s bowels” and how they are getting into the real body of the city. In the end it is mostly about his experiences of walking through the city.

While reading the article by Charles Mcgrath which talks about Will Self’s exploration of New York City, I can’t help but relate to his Self’s experiences. For one Self talks about the pleasure he derives from his walks and how it surpasses the pleasure he once obtained from drugs, on my end I would takes walks as a way to relax my inner turmoil without having to do drugs, not that I ever did mind you. Self’s stance on walking and exploration is that walking is one of the very few forms out there that represent true exploration in today’s post-industrial age, with this I also agree with as well. Self talks about his walk to the airport and his walk to the hotel which was more dangerous than he had first expected it to be, from my own experiences I too agree with him and his stance. By walking home from school during high school I was able to see new sights and experience other things that I otherwise would not have experienced if I had taken a method of mass transportation. Overall what stood out to me the most is his journey and the way it connects to me, but not only that but how it also connects to a reading we have made before in class.

Wednesday class continued from Monday’s class and students continued to improve the collage with the criticism received, for those who finished them before hand were allowed to begin painting them. Class started off with Show and Tell in which Mikala shared a unique video on youtube about Shia LaBeouf and another classmate, Richard, shared a video that featured vocabulary such as Juxtaposition. Professor Spevack talked about our assignment that is due this Monday, the class is to turn in one painted reproduction of one of their completed collage either broad or narrow with the other collage to be reproduced digitally by using photoshop. Professor Rosen also passed a reading during ADV 1100 that the class is to be read by Monday. Lastly during class Professor Spevack talked to the class one-on-one to discuss their grades and any questions they might have regarding the course.

After reading the Boston photographs it has really expanded my way of seeing. The Boston Photograph talks about an incident in which a faulty fire escape caused the death of a mother, however this was only part of the main focus as a whole what mattered the most was the photojournalist who took the photograph as the mother and her child fell from the fifth floor luckily the child survived. Stanly Foreman, the photojournalist who took the photographs originally intended to take photographs of the fire fighters being heroic but instead captured the death of a woman, the newspaper later published the story along with the images. This in turn caused an argument between those who had issues with the newspaper showing the corpse of a dead woman while those who supported it argued that it’s part of Foreman’s job. While it is wrong I do have to agree with that it’s Foreman’s job to bring these photographs to the public, while his true intentions weren’t to show the death of a woman rather show civil workers being heroic, Foreman did however show that photojournalism is very powerful. The reason I say it is very powerful is because images can more than often evoke more emotion than simple words, after all a photograph says a thousand words.

Words can mean many things but a photograph tells so much more. The Boston Photographs by Nora Ephron is an article that talks about the tragic accident that killed a woman during 1975 and the attention it received after images of her dead body were published in an article of the Boston newspaper. It all began when Stanly Forman a photojournalist attempted to capture images that depicted Fire Fighters being brave however due to certain circumstances Forman ended capturing images of a 19 year old woman and her child falling, the woman died with her child surviving the fall. After publishing the images in the newspaper the question began to arise, “Is placing images of corpses ethical? Is it for sensationalism? or is it just a cheap and dirty way to gain attention to one’s work?” When discussing the matter ombudsmen, people who are in charge of moderating content on the behalf of the people  say they have never seen anything like it while on the other hand editors of the post found it to be “intriguing” and found no problems with publishing it. The key point of the article is to debate the power of photojournalism over regular journalism to some extent photojournalism is more powerful than just regular journalism, photos can mean so much and the reaction it causes varies from person to person which makes it that much more valuable. In the end it doesn’t matter if an image is ethical or not as long as it fulfills its purpose of creating the reaction it desires it has accomplished what the photographer set out to do.

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