"Lost"

In my "Lost" essay I'm going to use different rhetorical modes. I want to use narration, I want to tell about a time where I was feeling lost to illustrate my point. I'm planning also to use compare and contrast situations where people can feel lost, for example when you lose your job or when you lose a significant other. how are those situations similar and different from each other? I think for now those two rhetorical methods are going to be helpful for me essay.

Lost in the world

To be lost in the world can have a lot of different connotations and differ from person to person based on personal experiences. I can feel I'm lost in the world if I have experience the lost of somebody who was really important in my life, and that my everyday activities where surrounded by that person. For example, a person can feel is lost in the world if she/he is getting divorced, if a loved one has passed away, if she/he has lost his/her job, and so on. 
Being "lost in the world" refers to the feeling of not knowing what to do because you are experiencing a difficult time where you have to balance  your life, make decisions, and accept your new reality. 

Effective description

  “You were the wind and I the sea.” (From “After Love” by Sara Teasdale)


The author is using this metaphor to led the reader make interpretations about the relationship between the two characters is this metaphor. 
The wind influences the temperature and direction of the sea. The sea is a docile large body of saline water that the wind, with kindness can give directions. If the wind is cold, the see is cold too. This metaphor shows the relationship between two people; one who is strong but led the other person lead his/her pathway. 

Assignment 8

All your senses are involved in this rendezvous with art. I closed your eyes and breath deeply, there was an amazing strong, aromatic, and smooth smell of coffee and chamomile tea, it was almost like I could taste it, a symphony of flavors.

Questions and answers (essay 2)

1.  What will be the subject of your profile essay?  What place will you profile?
The subject of my profile is a local rendezvous for all the community in Bakersfield, but specially for people who are interested in doing art as a means of recovery for any physical or psychological problem they may have; the place is the chapel located next to the Mercy Hospital in Downtown Bakersfield where the Art for Healing program takes place.

2.  What will be the dominant impression your essay will evoke?
The dominant impression my essay will evoke is to find a place that cares for the well being of the community based on my perception. 

3.  What narrative perspective will you choose?  
I'll use first-person.



4.  What will be your "Beginning"?
My beginning will be about my first impression in the Art for Healing program, making a description of the place, and explaining what's the purpose of this place in the community.

5.  How will you structure your "Middle"?
My middle will be about my experience in this place and how my perception and expectations from the first visit to now has change.

6.  What will you use in your "Conclusion"?
In my conclusion I'll make a summary of the most important facts and impressions about this place, why do I consider it important for the community, and how people can do to join this place. 

7.  How will you use dialogue?
I will use dialogue to make more vivid my profile essay introducing dialogues between me and the  director of Art for Healing, and a few people I've met over there.

8.  What "Characters" will your essay feature?
The characters will be me, the director of the program, and one or two more people. 

9.  What "Illuminating Details and Anecdotes" will you use?
I will use vivid descriptions about the place and what I consider is meaningful to the story, giving my opinions and experiences. 

10.  How will you use all (or most of) the senses?  What visual images will you use?  What auditory images?  What tactile images?  What gustatory images (tastes)?  What olfactory images (smells)?
I will emphasize my descriptions based on my senses. Since it is a place surrounded by art, it's going to be easy to makes descriptions and the use of all my senses is essential. 

11. What verb tense will you use?  Past tense?  Present tense?
I will use present tense.

Assignment 6, Death Valley

For this assignment I decide to read Desert Byways, about Death Valley. The author does a very good job doing the description of the place since the beginning. His descriptions are so clear that they help us picture the weather, and this is very effective to decide if you want or you don't want  to go visit Death Valley (especially during summer). He uses lot of  descriptive words. In the first paragraph he describes "the ground will become so hot that it will still be sautéing sandals come midnight", helping you understand how hot it really is over there. Another good thing about this profile is that he gives good directions about the place giving references. 

Thesis Statement!!!

Photographs can be interpreted in different ways based on the techniques used by the photographers, the reality and perception of each individual, and the story behind each moment captured. 

Leftovers of history

“Compared to photography memory's records are full of gaps … Memory does not pay much attention to dates; it skips years or stretches temporal distance.” (p. 425)

Wow! There is nothing more truly than this. As a psychology major, I’ve being studying memory for a few quarters and I completely agree that what we have in our memory are persons and events who are or were meaningful at the moment that we captured that memory, and we record only what we consider important for us. If we were trying to remember who was in our birthday party when we were 9 years old, we would probably remember just a few things unless something really impacting happened that day. If we look at the pictures from our 9^th birthday, we would probably see people and details we don’t even remember, that’s the authors say “Compared to photography memory's records are full of gaps”. The memory that we capture in a picture has all the details of that moment. If we try to remember an event, we’ll probably have a hard time to remember it specially if it was a long time ago; if we see a picture of the same event, automatically we will remember and notice things we didn’t even pay attention before.

“The photograph is the sediment that has settled from the monogram, and from year to year its semiotic value decreases. The truth content of the original is left behind in its history; the photograph captures only the residuum that history has discharged.” (p.429)

I believe this quote can be interpreted in different ways. I found this quote interesting because for me, a photograph can be interpreted differently depending on the person. A photograph is a captured moment, and the story behind that photograph depends in heritage. The story begins when the people involved in the picture tell the story of that moment, and this story goes from one person to another rolling over and over again; new things are added to it, things are taken away , and sometimes the original story is completely different from the last one told about the photograph. I agree that from year to year photography’s semiotic value decreases. As I said before, the original meaning of a picture changes due to diverse interpretations of it. At the end, the value of the picture is just what is left from the original version of the story. 

This is a picture of my son in Sea World from our visit last month. (June/2012)

Reality and perception

The essay written by Roland Barthes helps us understand photography in a three level perception: linguistic message, coded iconic message, and noncoded iconic message. This reading confused me a little bit, but there were many passages that caught my attention.

Barthes argues, “The photograph, message without a code, must thus be opposed to the drawing which, even when denoted, is a coded message.” (p. 277) Photographs show a complete and pure reality of what the photographer is looking at, and can only be modified by trick effects. Photographs show things how they are. They show pure reality. Drawing is the result of the artist’s perception towards a specific person, object, or place. Drawing doesn’t show all the pieces and parts of the object, it is mainly a representation of the object. We can say that photographs are more complete than drawing because they capture objects, persons, and places as they really are, without changing their characteristics based on the artist perception. When you take a picture of a person, the picture completely represents whom that person is; when you draw a portrait, you are also drawing who that person is, but not neutrally, your perception influences the outcome of the drawing. I’m an artist and that’s why this quote was controversial and hard to understand to me. I believe that when people see a drawing, they can interpret it as they want taking in consideration first the intend of the artist, because what they see is not reality, is the artist’s perception of reality. When you see a drawing you are involved in the artist’s world and reality. When a person sees photography, he can interpret it freely, because a picture is reality, and we can interpret reality as we please. When you see a picture, you are involved in everyone’s reality that can only be changed through perception.

The second idea that I found interesting is that “The variation in readings is not, however, anarchic; it depends in the different kinds of knowledge—practical, national, cultural, aesthetic—invested in the image and these can be classified, brought into a typology.” (p. 280). Once again this quote brings me to the idea of perception. Perception is driving by the things that we have experienced, the places we have visited, the food we have eaten, etc. If a person in any country in America looks at a picture of a Muslim woman, his perception would be totally different of the perception a person from Middle East would have of the same picture. Everybody interprets reality different, and a single picture can have lots of different readings among people, and there is no right or wrong answer because it’s culturally based. This is the positive thing about photography, is like an open-ended question, open to any answer.

This is a picture I took from a sculpture in my trip to Ecuador last year in the museum of Quito called "Museo de la Ciudad". 

"The image world"

      The first quote that I found interesting on Sontag’s “The image world” is “Photography does not simply reproduce the real, it recycles it - a key procedure of a modem society.” (p.174). This quote makes me think of the true meaning of photographs. When you take a picture of something or somebody, you capture a moment that you consider meaningful to you. You are reproducing reality. Our memory is fragile, and we are unable to remember every moment, detail, or emotions that happened in a particular moment. Pictures are helpful instruments for memory. There are so many interesting and beautiful things that we experience, and photography can help us remember them, even if many years have passed from the moment when the picture was taken. When you see a picture you immediately remember what you were doing when the picture was taken, who and where were you with, and many details that probably you didn’t even remember. Smells, feelings, and sensations come to life again. Basically you just recycled the reality of the moment when the picture was taken.

      The second quote I found interesting in the text is “there is beauty or at least interest in everything, seen with an acute enough eye.” (p. 176).  Everyone has a different perception of reality and beauty. What for me is beautiful and interesting, for other person may be considered meaningless. The good thing about photography is that you can take pictures in perspective making small things look bigger, colors can look brighter than they really are, you can make look places farter away, and play with the spectator’s perception of reality. Behind everything that is around us, there is somebody who created it, and the time they spent doing their inventions must be respected. My experiences are what determine what I like and what I dislike, and through photography I can show other people my point of view of what I consider beautiful and interesting.

This is a picture I took 2 weeks ago from my trip to Las Vegas. Local time 5pm :)