WP1 Pre-Writing 3

The photo I chose was taken in western Rwanda overlooking Lake Kivu in 2000. This was only six years after the terrible Rwandan genocide ended, a violent conflict between the Tutsis and the Hutus, the two major ethnic groups in Rwanda and its neighboring country Burundi.

The crisis began in April 1994, and by June, there were about 800,000 dead, mostly Tutsis. Rwanda has a long history of conflict between the two groups that culminated in the assassination of the Hutu Rwandan president on April 6, 1994. The Hutu backlash resulted in the mass murder of the Tutsis, and millions more fled Rwanda to neighboring countries. Conflict still remains however as the current Tutsi government continues to invade the Democratic Republic of Congo to attempt to get rid of the Hutus that are refugees there.

As a result of all this, about 95,000 Rwandan children were killed or orphaned. This influenced Rosamond Carr, an American woman who had been living in Rwanda, to create what would come to be the Imbabazi Orphanage. Over 400 kids have been cared for in the orphanage, and one of these kids was Musa, the photographer of the picture I chose.

"Through the Eyes of Children" was a photography project started at the Imbabazi Orphanage. The program gave disposable cameras to the children to take "pictures for themselves and to share with others, exploring their community, and finding beauty as the country struggles to rebuild" (Rwandaproject.org).

Knowing this sheds more light on the situation of the children at the orphanage and helps the viewer of the photograph to appreciate it more. At first glance, it is just a photograph of children looking out at a lake, but knowing the historical and cultural context of the photo appeals to the viewers' emotions, or pathos. It makes the audience wonder more about the particular photograph--Why was it taken? What does it show? Who are these children? And what about the photographer? While not a professional photographer, he had a specific purpose in mind when he took this picture. He wanted to show what life is like for these children, so often forgotten by the rest of the world. With the help of the Rwanda Project, Musa helped to ensure that these children will not be forgotten and that their story will reach the rest of the world.

Works Cited
Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened. BBC News. 18 December 2008. 17 February 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1288230.stm.

Imbabazi: A Home for Hope. 17 February 2010. http://imbabazi.org/home.php.

Through the Eyes of Children. The Rwanda Project. 17 February 2010. http://www.rwandaproject.org/index.html.

WP1 Pre-Writing 2

As mentioned in WP1 Pre-Writing 1, the children in the photograph are looking out across the lake. Thus, the vectors of attention are focused in that direction, away from the audience. This creates an appeal to pathos because it evokes a sense of curiosity in the audience. What are the children looking at? Where is there attention focused? Why is it so important that they all are looking at the same thing? The audience can't see what the children in the photograph can see so this in effect distances and separates the viewers from the photograph. There isn't as strong of an emotional connection as there would be if the children were looking at the camera.

Also appealing to pathos are the colors visible in the photograph. The sky and the lake are very similar hues, so they blend together and aren't very distinct. The children sitting on the rail serve as a kind of visual separation between the sky and the water to better distinguish them. The top line of the rail is almost exactly where the horizon is in the background, which provides a clear distinction between the sky and the water that otherwise might not have been very noticeable. In addition, the colors in the background are not very saturated. The sky and water are both a pale grayish-blue, and the ground is a light brownish-tan. These hues and the saturation of the hues elicit certain emotions with the viewer. They create a sense of neutrality--there doesn't seem to be much going on in the background of the picture and it may not seem very important. Emotions of indifference and bleakness tend to arise from the hues in the photograph, which may make the audience feel apathetic.

The children contrast with the background of the photo because they are a darker hue that stands out against the pale background. This contrast appeals to logos because it creates a visual hierarchy--the eye is first draw to the children, specifically the child in the yellow shirt sitting on the rail. He is seated higher than the rest of the children, and as a result, stands out more. The rest of the children are aligned, and the child seated on the rail breaks this repetition. He is also positioned near the center of the photograph which further helps draw the eye toward him first and makes him seem like the main subject in the photograph.

The framing of the photograph is interesting. The rail and the lake appear to go on forever on either side; there is no clear end in sight in the photograph. This creates a sense of vastness and makes the children seem smaller and possible less significant compared to everything else. However, since the photo doesn't show how big the lake really is or how far the rail extends, the children take up the bulk of the picture and are still the main focus, which is what the photographer probably intended. By looking at the photograph, the viewer can infer about the photographer and how he took this picture, appealing to ethos. The viewer appears to be where the photographer was standing, so the viewer puts themself in his place--standing behind the other children and observing them.

WP1 Pre-Writing 1

This photograph is from the gallery "Through the Eyes of Children" reached from a link on the Wysocki site. The photograph was taken by a boy named Musa at the Imbabazi Orphanage in Rwanda. The project started in 2000 and gave cameras to orphans so they could document their lives after the Rwandan genocide. Most of the pictures in the gallery were taken with 35mm disposable cameras and in 2005, digital cameras started to be used. This photo, "Sitting on Rail," was taken with a disposable camera.

The people in this picture are most likely other children at the Imbabazi Orphanage. As the title says, they are sitting an a rail overlooking the water, probably overlooking Lake Kivu, a lake in western Rwanda near where the orphanage is located.

Most of the children were probably orphaned as a result of the extensive violence and genocide that occurred in Rwanda in the 1990s. Rwanda is not a rich country, so most of these children would have had hard lives despite being orphans displaced by tragedy. Growing up in an orphanage would not have been easy, especially after losing or being abandoned by their parents, but the children were provided food and shelter, as well as some degree of protection from the instability of the country. Literally translated, "Imbabazi" means “a place where you will receive all the love and care a mother would give” so likely, the children in the orphanage would have been relatively well off compared to other impoverished children in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is probably warm outside because sub-Saharan Africa is typically hot, and this is shown by the clothes the children are wearing and the fact that most of them aren't wearing shoes. This could also be because they are poor and can't afford shoes. It is also really cloudy in the picture, suggesting that it is in a season that gets more rain or is cooler than usual.

Some of the children appear to be friends given that they are in clusters along the rail instead of all spread out, and this could be because of the similar situation they were forced into. It looks like the children are on some kind of bridge or road because of the rail, and the photographer is standing behind them, possibly on the other side of the bridge. If you look closely, you can see a beach and part of a person on the beach on the right hand side of the picture. This beach might have been a place where the children went in their free time for fun and relaxation, or maybe the children couldn't go there and that is why they are all standing on the bridge. In the picture, they seem to be looking out across the water at something, but you can't really tell what it is from looking at the photograph. They could be watching the person on the beach or something else that isn't visible to the audience.

Weekly Blog Post 7

I wouldn't consider myself an expert at photography by any means, but I enjoy it and I have some experience with it. I just got a new camera, a Nikon Coolpix S220, which is not the most high-quality, top-notch camera out there, but it works well for what I use it for. I mostly use photography to take pictures when I hang out with friends or go on trips so it's nothing that serious, but it's fun and I always enjoy going back and looking at pictures. Pictures help me remember things and are a lot easier to share with other people. I would rather go through and look at someone's vacation pictures than hear them tell me all about the trip. Like the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words."

I really like playing around with different camera settings and filters. Black and white photos are my favorite because I like the visual appeal of them. They are very simple and classic, and I think they look more artsy than standard color photos. I do like color, but black and white or sepia works better with some photos. Generally, I think black and white is better for more formal pictures of people, but color is better for things like landscapes or informal pictures. I had a lot of my senior pictures done in black and white, and those were my favorites, but I usually just use color when goofing around with my friends.

I'm getting more into photography lately because my dad is an amateur photographer, and he is very good at it. He has several cameras for different uses, and has shown my brothers and I how to use them and what they are for. We have a darkroom in our basement because he develops his own film, and I would like to learn how to do that. It's really interesting to me, but I just haven't been home enough or had the time to work on it.

Weekly Blog Post 6

In the video for "Man on the Moon" by R.E.M., the creator of the video uses a variety of rhetorical appeals to add to the overall effectiveness of the video.

One of the most apparent strategies is the use of logos. The video is in black and white and often shows Michael Stipe, the band's lead singer, walking through the desert, but there are other images projected in the background. This creates a structural visual hierarchy because Stipe is always the most focused aspect of the video and is what the eye is drawn to first. However, as Stipe is just walking and singing, the audience tends to pay more attention to what is happening in the background after initially noticing Stipe. Occasionally, the video cuts back to just showing Stipe, again making him the central focus. As the video is entirely in black and white, there isn't a lot of contrast colorwise, but as mentioned earlier, Stipe tends to contrast with the background clips. The background clips generally look like old TV shows with fuzzy pictures and horizontal lines across them, while Stipe is often shown in a clear picture.

The video also sometimes shows several clips of the same thing at the same time. They appear to be randomly located on the screen, and are each portrayed a bit differently. Since they are of the same object or clip, they serve as repetition and create a sense of visual unity. Sometimes the video shows several different clips at the same time, and this can be confusing as there is a lot going on visually and the audience may not know what to focus on and so has to try to take in everything at the same time. This is effective in that it gets the audience to see everything that is being presented in the video.

The structural use of logos helps to formulate pathos and ethos within the video as well. The only hues used are black and white and don't have much brightness. This keeps the video simple, and the simplicity helps the audience to focus on the clips in the video instead of having to take in all the different colors. This avoids over-stimulation, especially when there are a lot of different images shown, and this contributes to the overall effectiveness of the video.

The video is arranged to visually support the argument of the song that there are a lot of things, both true and untrue that people will believe or not believe as discussed in Weekly Blog Post 4. The clips and images used in the video are all of the references made in the lyrics of the song and are organized in such a way to draw the attention of the audience to each aspect and highlight their importance. The end result is a music video that is both argumentative and entertaining, which was probably the original purpose of the makers of the video.