Vacation Exercise (in class)

• I took the photo to capture my lovely parents on the top of this pretty Barcelona building.
• I wanted it to look like a simple snapshot capturing the background.
• I tried to get as much scenery in the background without neglecting my parents as the focal point.
• I suppose that if they were to take a picture of me, it would look similar, but opposite. I would be alone and there would be plenty of interesting scenery behind me.
• Caption: "Sofia at the top of the world"
• My parents, if they were to capture this photo of me, would see mostly innocence and youthfulness, because I am their youngest child and this is their impression of me.
• I think this exercise might encourage me to think more about the photo I'm taking and what I want it to convey, rather than just snapping away without a thought.
• Another method would be to take candid shots of people; this way the photos would appear more natural rather than posed.

Fun with Picnik

            For this assignment, I took a picture of myself on my webcam, just looking at the camera and attempting a somewhat fake smile. The picture, boring, represents more accurately what I look like than its altered version. I used Picnik, which has many simple but fun photo-editing applications that mimic work in an actual dark room.

            First, I lowered the exposure, taking away some of the light in the photo. More shadows appear, especially on the right side of my face. Also, the background gets more shadows, making the it appear more spacious and viscerally appealing. I then increased the contrast, which made me appear tanner, and the lighting more flattering.  The light in the background no longer looks pale white but more of a sunshine yellow. Next, I increased the temperature of the photo, adding to the sunshine effect, and making me appear even more tan. I then decreased the saturation to remove some of the orange pigment from my face and skin; this step also makes the photo look slightly less altered. I then sharpened the image, making it appear higher quality. My last step was cross processing, which provided the most change for the image. It provided it with more interesting colors and contrast, emphasizing the artificial sunshine aspect I created.

            Looking at the photo, I notice it is very shadowed and dark, and I look slightly orange. I think this is because of the media’s emphasis on being tan and its ridicule for plainness. All of my editing revolved around making myself appear less mundane and ordinary, yet I’m simply hiding in shadow with an orange mask on my face.

I'm on Fire: a metaphor for lust, or even love

Hey little girl is your daddy home

Did he go away and leave you all alone

I got a bad desire

I’m on fire



Tell me now baby is he good to you

Can he do to you the things that I do

I can take you higher

I’m on fire



Sometimes it's like someone took a knife baby

Edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley

Through the middle of my soul



At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet

And a freight train running through the

Middle of my head

Only you can cool my desire

I’m on fire

Song/Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0o9TyxPRU0

Bruce Springsteen’s song, I’m on Fire, is a prime example of metaphor in song. It is filled with comparisons that convey his lusty desire for a certain female companion. Each time he says, “I’m on fire,” he is not literally talking about combustion, rather he is “heating up” with lusty want—“I got a bad desire.” In the beginning, he implies that the girl is youthful, for she still lives with her father. He is tempting her to flee home for him, by making the comparison of him to her father and what each has to offer. Stating that she is better off with him, he claims, “I can take you higher.” He means that he can offer her opportunities that will possibly blow her mind, and it can be inferred that these opportunities are sexual.

            In describing his lust, Springsteen makes a simile to a wound—the lust is so powerful that it pains him; “it’s like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull, and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul.” This part of the song suggests that, perhaps, it is more than lust that is plaguing him, but even love. For, would lust really cause such pain, or does he long for even more from his partner? When he refers to the “sheets soaking wet” in the middle of the night it can be inferred that it is from his anxiety to see his mate once again, and he is troubled in her absence—“a freight train running through the middle of my head.” His soaking wet sheets could also be inferred as a wet dream suggesting that it is more of an issue of lust than love. He is certain that she is the only one that can cure his lusty disposition when he states, “only you can cool my desire.” She is his buffer; without her, he will remain anxious, lusty and incomplete.

Shakespeare's portrait: a metonym for his ambiguous life

            The image I selected that relates to my role as an English major is a portrait of William Shakespeare. This portrait, a classic, has descended for centuries in the same family, the Cobbes, hanging in their Irish home until the 1980’s when its newest owner, Alex Cobbe, had the family heirlooms transferred into a trust. He later visited the National Portrait Gallery which was having an exhibition entitled “Searching for Shakespeare” in which he found a painting that resembled his own to a tee. This portrait, which now hangs in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, had been thought to be the original, but has fallen from grace because Cobbe was able to prove that this painting was a copy of the one in his family collection. Research shows that the Cobbe painting was passed down through the Cobbes’ cousin’s marriage to the great granddaughter of Shakespeare’s only patron, Henry Wriothesley. Several other copies have been found and all are less detailed than Cobbe’s.

            This portrait is a metonym for Shakespeare’s ambiguous life. Little is known about the writer, and what we think know about him is constantly being attacked and questioned. For instance, some argue over the accuracy or likeness of the portrait, stating that it may not even be Shakespeare featured in the picture. However, with the finding of the Cobbe portrait, more people believe it is indeed Shakespeare in the picture because it is inscribed with a quotation from the Classical writer, Horace, taken from ode addressed to a playwright. Dating of the wood panel and an X-ray examination placed the origin around 1610, when Shakespeare was 46, six years before his death. This painting may, with good possibility, the only portrait of Shakespeare painted during his lifetime. With so little known about him, knowing his appearance brings the public forward a gigantic gap. Yet, still, so little is known about his life—many people even consider him to be a fraud. The ambiguous nature of this newly discovered authenticity mirrors the quest to uncover more about Shakespeare’s hidden life. The painting is simply a representation of the larger, more complex mystery that is William Shakespeare.

Cobbe Painting--up close

Janssen Portrait--copy (Folger Shakespeare Library)

                 It is human obsession with survival that results in the taste for depictions of death and suffering. In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag asserts, “Photographs of the suffering and martyrdom of a people are more than reminders of death, of failure of victimization. They invoke the miracle of survival” (87). People want to appreciate life. Viewing people suffering awakens a sense of gratitude for life that is often neglected. Driving past a car accident, you look out your window to ascertain that the victim has indeed survived. If it is a gruesome scene, you empathize of course; you also feel thankful that you are safe and it was not you involved in the crash.  Similarly, people view horror movies in order to gain appreciation for their luck and ease in life, the fact that they have survived thus far. In Letters from of Iwo Jima, this human obsession with survival is taunted when the American soldiers discover the two Japanese soldiers. To the audience, it seems that the Americans are amiable when they offer them water. You actually believe initially that they were going to help them survive, but, of course, one of the Americans shoots both soldiers point blank, one after the other. For the second soldier, the very last thing he sees before he dies, after watching his friend falling to the ground, is the American’s gun, and his drooping cigarette. He then closes his eyes, accepting his fate. The brief moment between gunshots seems somehow fathomless. By forcing the audience to live the Japanese soldier’s last moment through his eyes, one forgets who the “Other” is, and must ponder the atrocious nature of humanity. This scene inspires feelings of sympathy for the ‘”Others” as well as reinforces the notion of survival as a miracle. The faux mercy that the Americans show at first emphasizes the ruthlessness of human nature, but what proceeds is a sense of appreciation for life in general.  Nothing makes survival seem more miraculous than tyranny.

Blog #4

            After viewing and analyzing my Facebook page, I have come to the conclusion that my persona is depicted as being a happy, carefree individual who is completely content with the life I’ve been given. While this description seems ideal, it is in no way who I really am. The written texts on my page serve this persona indirectly through a more reflective and focused happiness, although my images show a direct attempt to convey a more superficial, “caught in the moment” happiness.  Namely, almost every photo features me smiling, whether I’m with friends, family, or my dog.  They look natural enough, and yet none are candid; they are stages smiles. They show me with friends at parties, posing as if we are having the time of our lives; or with my sister, smiling as if we're the happiest people on earth. My attempt at conveying constant happiness is indirectly a result of my subculture as an American teen; we all want to live the ideal life, so we smile as if this life is our own.

            The written text on my page is more effective in depicting my actual thoughtful character, yet it still has the essence of false happiness. In my “write something about yourself” box are Bob Dylan lyrics, “the man in me will hide sometime to keep from being seen, but that’s just because he doesn’t wanna turn into some machine.” This quotation serves my character well because I often feel like an outsider and I try my best to avoid conformation. However, my status that simply states “I love it all” directly combats this meditative thought and once more adds to a sense of happiness that is not real; instead, it’s just an attempt to prove to other members of my subculture as an American teen that I am just as happy as they are. In short, my Facebook certainly depicts a false, exultant character that is not my own.

            It was one of those long exhausting days that make you question who you are and what your purpose here on earth is. Melodramatic as it may sound, I was seething over my homework load and my swimming practice schedules, wondering how it was that I signed up for this deathbed known as college. I was sitting in the Tolbert laundry room reading one of my three required sociology textbooks while simultaneously texting my dear mother. She kept insisting that I find a way to branch out and meet people, people like me.

            “I know you’re not into sororities, but there’s got to be a cool one!” she texted. What a dreamer. My mother, of all people, should have known how terrified I am of crowds of girls and their evil ways. Thinking about groups of girls paying for their friends and attending killer parties while absentmindedly skimming my text started to make me feel sluggish, and slightly depressed. The sound of the air conditioning kept humming—it was quite hypnotic. Within moments I was fast asleep.

            “You cannot enter!” cried the pig. Why?, I thought. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was. Everyone was crowded around the mountain and the pig was sitting on top, as if the huge rock was his throne.  This creature looked like any ordinary pig, only colossal in height and width, and with a strangely menacing English accent. Even worse, he was wearing my favorite blue top—the one with the bow in the center and the swoopy back. The sight of this monstrous creature wearing my favorite shirt made me grow quickly infuriated. Who did he think he was? He was stretching it out with every exhale; I could see the seams were on the verge of splitting. He bent down from his rocky throne and made close eye contact with me—and then, disgustingly, blew a nasty waft of air in my face.

            “What’s your deal?” I bellowed, infuriated. “I just want my freaking shirt back!” The beast laughed, his giant pig belly gyrating under my cute top.

            “You think you are WORTHY of a shirt of this status? Don’t make me laugh! Now go to class.”

            “What?”

            “Sofia. Go to class. You fell asleep….Your laundry should be done now..” exclaimed the pig. Suddenly I was being shaken, by the pig…no…by my roommate, Ashley.

            “You’ve been asleep for like…ten hours,” she said. Wow, I thought; what a dream. As she exited the room I reached for my laundry basket and walked over to the dryer, still pondering over the bizarre dream I just had. What was it supposed to mean? Clearly, I’m not worthy of something; but what? It didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, but I was thinking so deeply about it that I faltered to realize something was drastically wrong with my laundry pile—something blue and adorable was missing.

            “My shirt!” I screamed. I tore through the pile again and again, until I was absolutely sure it was gone. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I couldn’t believe someone would have the nerve to come in and steal my shirt, from an occupied drier nonetheless. My thoughts crept back to my dream, and I realized that the entire fantasy must have been some form of reality. Asleep, it was as if some part of me realized that an injustice was being committed against me. Worse even, I began to reflect on the bitter feelings I had before I drifted off to sleep—alienation from groups of happy girls, stress from my workload—and now my favorite shirt was missing. Once more, I was sinking in a sea of melodramatic depression. Somehow I just wasn’t good enough on some level, and the world was seeking its revenge on me for being so inferior. I picked up my laundry basket, still seething, and trudged off to my dorm to drop it off.

            On my way to class, I couldn’t help but notice the slight breeze that was rustling the leaves in the trees. It brought me back to autumn days at home with my dad, picking up leaves and examining the arrays of colors. I wondered how my parents were doing, how my dogs were holding up. Thoughts of home brought forth some level of comfort, and before I knew it, my depressed disposition had blown by like the dust in the wind. My sociology class flowed by surprisingly smoothly, and I was thankful for having read the chapter after all. As I walked back to my dorm after my class, I began to wonder why I was so upset. Sure, my shirt was missing, but it was just a material possession. So what if I never achieved a level of popularity like I would in a sorority of material girls? So what if I have to drown in a sea of homework,? The results yielded can only be positive.

            I ascended the stairs to my dorm with a feeling of unannounced accomplishment. I felt good about my day for some reason. When I reached my door, to my astonishment, something blue lay in a folded heap on the floor. My shirt! I picked it up and rejoiced, bringing it close to my face. I smelled it and almost gagged. Bacon! Ew! I thought in revolted happiness. It smelled like the very pig who stole it, and yet I couldn’t care less. Some stranger had borrowed it, ate bacon in it, and yet was kind enough to return it. The world isn’t so bad after all, I thought. I headed down to the laundry room to cleanse the pig out of my shirt, once and for all.

Reflection: