WOW, its been awhile!

Well alot has happend since i graduated. Not really. Summer was good. I had a few good drunken times,lol. And a few good trips.I'd say maid of the mist was the best. I moved back to rochester, which has been great. Although I could have seen some people more than i did. My parents are moving away and I'm staying here. And I am staying in the house and Jessica is moving in!!! wow talk about a big step! i'm excited though. I just started a new job working for a school pictures company. Its great, i get to take pictures and use my degree!,lol. Its only seasonal though. Hmmm, thats all i have to say for now.

"We're your Caldor"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldor

Remeber this store,lol. its a cleaver wikipedia page. thats all

FDA approves first pill meant to end periods

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18745930/

So in this article a pill has been approved by the FDA to end womens Menstruation Cycle. Well this is pretty interesting i think. Obviously I do not get periods, but I think that this subject is worthy of a disucssion. I think that this pill would be good for some but not others such stated in the article. I agree that it is a normal part of life and doesnt need to be medicated, maybe regulated at times for those who choose so. I mean life survived fine without birth control for so long. They are supposed to get it. But for those women who get it hard i think it would be a good idea. But defintly only in those situations would it be ok. Anyways Thoughts?

decisions...

So I've decided on making my last day at Regal here in Buffalo May 20th, so that means I will be moving back to Rochester through out June and July......This will give me some time to go job hunting and what not before I embark on the road trip to Tennesee with Jessica and her parents to attend a wedding. Should be an interesting drive/trip that I am looking foward to.
The future really is as open as I want it to be. I really dont know what I want to do with my life, all i know is i want to be happy. i value love, family and friendship over any amount of money. I'm not saying that i do not want to be successful though, i just want both and dont want to choose. i hope everything works out for the best. Life always has seemed to work its self out for the best and i'm confident that this life situation i am in wont be any different.
Just take life one day at a time. Live each day to the fullest. I plan on reclaiming my life this year. Because for the past 5 years i have been known as : Murray the college student, and well that is not going to be the case any longer. So i am going to attempt to figure that out during this summer. Attempt to figure out my identity. i think it shall be a fun adventure and am looking foward to this.

Its almost over...

Well good morning! it is currently 4:15am. and well, i kinda just woke up. Yesterday Monday, April 30th was the last day of the semister/ my last day of my undergraduate classes.
So i had a final exam in my Greek art history class and I stayed up all night becore studying for the most part. So i was up for more than 24 hours without any sleep. :-( . It sucked! i am never ever going to stay up that long if i can help it. I felt sick all day long.
Anyways, my first class of the day was easy, i was kinda sad that the teacher kinda just skipped over my project without even looking at it with the class, i wanted some feedback from my fellow classmates, but oh well i was too out of it to say anything. so then i went to take my test for the art histroy, and by the time i got there, i was so nervous and so tired that i started to forget information and mix up dates and terms, it was so bad. But its over and done with, i wana say i prob got like an 80 i hope. So then i had a nice break and went back to the apt to relax and went back for my last class that this blog was actually intended for. I think that class went really well, i had fun looking at everyones projects. defintly some good ideas going around there, i liked the child work book one because they had a little "wheres bleu" section like waldo, that was great. Thanks to nikki, one of my classmates, we ended the class with a nice snack and talk about theory and art, it was a good time, i think i had like 15 string cheese,haha. So then i went back and finished up a project for my studio class ,handed it in and i was done with classes..

Man today i was so tired, i fell asleep at around 9:15 pm and woke up around 4am ish to get some water. but that was sooo nice to sleep, i feel really better now.
................................so if i can pass geology, which i should, then i will be able to graduate, yay! Bah well i think i am going to go watch heroes and or 24 because i'm not tired anymore and jessica is headed up here in like 3 hours. so to everyone, good luck with finals and congrats to those of you who are graduating. i think i'm going to write a blog about moments from my 5 years at college. lol for now...

Shalom and Grapefruit.- MY

blog 1.5 not related to class stuff, just some random thoughts...

Good morning ya'll,

(not that anyone actually reads this thing.)Anywho, it is now 5:36am, depite what the posting will say. Well I woke up about an hour ago for biological reasons, and just couldnt/cant fall back asleep at the moment. Its ok though, I just started watching some Dvr'd things I have from this past week i havent gotten into watching cause i've been so busy with my 6 classes finishing things up. Which i've almost gotten everything off my list of things to do, i think i have like 3 things left, and to study study study. Anyways, so on to the Dvr thing, I love this, I just go through the guide schedule for the week and look at whats on, well besides my usual shows through out the week, but i will talk about those at another time, but lately i've been watching alot of the history channel, man i love this station, its so informitive. I watched a thing the other day about the real battle of the '300' it was pretty neat and i've had on this program about the surrender of the south to the north at the end of the civil war at richmond and appomattox, va. and all the events leading up to this surrender. Its interesting. And later this weekend i have dvr'd a program about Greece and the Acropolis. I'm pretty excited.

So i just wanted to say as well, mostly because this is an informal blog, i know I randomly decide to use my writing skills at random with my grammer, but i just cant make up my mind and dont really care too much about that along with spelling, i'm not a dictonary and this isnt graded on its spelling but on its content. So i am sorry for those of you who do/will read this for that inconsistancy.

I am listening to the Lord of the Rings soundtracks right now, I really enjoy that symphony by Howard Shore. Along with the books and the movies. The score is just beautiful in every aspect. Only a few sountrack/scores from movies really get to me, that of : Gladiator ,Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Superman of corse. but pretty much all the themes from John Willams, Howard Shore and Danny Elfman i find delightful. A funny thing is there is something fun about driving to the theme song from Back to the Future and the Superman theme that just wants to make one speed.
Well i should go lay down and attempt to fall back asleep sometime soon i'd love to get another 3-4 hours of sleep. So on that thought, I hope everyone has a nice friday and a great weekend.

Peace and Love,
MY

Just a question non related to class

Dear Classmates,

I am just curious if anyone else is going to keep their blog up and running just for fun. I have been toying with the idea of keeping my blog for personal enterys and what not, updates on my life and random thoughts that may happen to pop into my head. I have kept online journals for quite sometime ending with the 'LiveJournal' website which i havent updated in quite sometime now. So a blog is in place already on this website therefore i am going to try my best to do a few enterys every once in awhile. So if you are reading this and plan on keeping yours up and running please feel free to let me know and we can add eachother to be 'friends'. Thanks

Peace, Love and Applesauce- MY

Response to Seigo's blog

Well Seigo was talking about the differences of American cultures and Japan. I think its really interesting how people of the world have different ways of teaching and how he said that the teachers in japan, from what i understood, just want the students to understand the information and how in the US we have a discussion about the material and how we feel.
Its just interesting that anyone visiting another area that they are not familiar with has pretty much the same adjustments to go through, Like even going to a place like England i'm sure, they speak english and so do we, but its a different kind of english. But then again we can encounter that in our own country as well just by going to a different part.
I think what he was saying ties into the Middle Eastern photographs we looked at.

MARCEL

Well I really wish we had some background information about this guy and what he did/does. I was really confused about some of the things he spoke about. And all the names he threw at us from people who were big in like the 60's and 70's. Like we were supposed to know who he was talking about. So in that sense i was just listening.
I did however also think that some of the things he was talking about was quite interesting. I liked that video alot. It interested me because it was so...prehestoric? or brand new that this was a big deal back then. I think it defintly paved the way for things like the fax or even email. I mean in the corse of like 30 years technology came up with websites like YouTube where you can upload any video you want and post it for millions to view. Also sites like MySpace and Facebook, are global networks with people from all over the world linked into it.
So even though i didnt really understand half of what he was saying i still appreciated what he was doing with the Marcel project.

about LaChapelle not to be confused with the comedian.

So i really like the work of this photographer. I think that he puts lots of detail in his sets and then as much detail into his models. Some of his pictues are just odd works. I looked at that book going around and thought it was very interesting and noticed their were a few celebrites thrown in their with some interesting poses like manson and barrymore. the fairy tail/pornish looking pictures are really interesting as well. And i think the guy just may have an obession with breasts possibly.
I think some of his fashion statments are really quite odd and interesting also. The outfits these people wear are out of some scifi film or something like "The Fifth Element" movie. They are very bright and colorful images so the images are very pleasing to look at.

Blog about that movie dvd made in china..

Well i really enjoyed what segment we watched of the dvd. I think its facenating that these people werent allowed to go into certian areas and i think its even funnier that they ditched their translater/guide to go venture off on their own. Although im sure it would have been nice to have someone with them who spoke the language. So they could have gone and for example ate with the family who invited them in.
I really like to people watch, in a noncreepy way, i find it very interesting the way people act in different environments. Like just sitting in the cfa cafe area watching all the people react to their names being called or going to the mall and walking around. When i'm at work , which is at a movie theater, whenever i take tickets its just fun to stand their and guess what movie people are going to see and whatever else they do.
Well enough about that rant, but the point is i think these people from what we saw just walked around a city and filmed people. And how they acted, it seemed like a soical commentariy more than anything to me, but i enjoyed it.

So my thoughts on the whole Fashion thing...

First off i want to say that i think that the statment about all people who read vouge cant think for themselves is a kind of harsh statment. It may be true for some people, but i really highly doubt that there are people who let this magazene run their life. Just because i watch alot of tv doesnt mean i cant think for myself. Heck i get my news from the Daily Show sometime.
My reaction is are the fashion photographs of models or the clothes they are wearing. I doubt that the clothes are there to show off the model. They just need someone to present the items/products in a professional manner. Now I am guilty of watching a certian show on the CW/WB called Americas Next Top Model. i find it really interesting and pay attention to the photo shoots. But its just funny how someone like Tyra Banks and Fashion Icon Twiggy can have such an effect on these girls futures as models. Girls from the show get kicked off and im sure find work right away because they were on tv. But i mean who is it to tell me what is in fashion and what is out of? idk. I might be just blabbing about nothing now though.

Responce to Alan's question...

"Is it at any time alright to set up a shot while doing a documentary photo shoot? "

I want to say I think yes, but it depends on the situation. If you need to set up a documentary shot to make a point that you couldnt get any other way, i think it is absolutely fine to do that. But i think that one needs to make notice of this somewhere. I dont think its bad if you do that. If you can get the shot then great, if not its ok to re create it as long as you mention it.

"Has the standard of ethics risen over the last 100 years that we can not do that any more? "

I think that in our day and age Edward Curtis Indians wouldnt be able to hold any vadility at all if they were taken now. They would defintly be recognized as fake pictures. I dont even think that anyone would dare do that because of the stupid things people get sued over now-a-days. But that goes with what i was saying earlier though. If they were set up pictures depicting things/events that actually took place i would say we could use the pictures as a kind of "social/histoircal" document to make refrence to. But then again, that would defintly be open to debate because its just One way One person saw how it would be done. So that might come into question. maybe thats why there is such a variety of text books for history.

Croc Crazyness!

"The severed lower left arm of a Taiwanese veterinarian is seen in the jaws of a crocodile, Wednesday, April 11, 2007, at the Shoushan Zoo in Kaohsiung, 350 kilometers (217 miles) south west of Taipei, Taiwan. Chang Po-yu's lower left arm was bitten off by the crocodile when he tried to pull a tranquilizer dart from the reptile's body. The crocodile was shot and killed and Chang went through emergency surgery to have his limb reattached. (AP Photo/Steve Chen) "

So my friend emailed this article to me today because of the photograph. I think thats pretty nuts. Its defitly news worthy and is interesting how someone in our part of the world can see news from the other half of the world.
I just find the technology of online newspapers interesting. I wonder how much media will be in the future online, if we will still be able to get print. Who knows someday Vouge could strictly be online as well as alot of other printed material. It kind of ties into the virtual books like the DaVinci books.

Middle Eastern Photography blog...

Well we discussed this topic at the begining of april. I thought it was really interesting to look at photography though the eyes of middle east. I liked the part of that book where they compared old photograps taken and then people retook those same pictures and compared. how they looked/seemed like someones vacation pictures of egypt. Its because they didnt know any other way to document them. As if they were taken from someone from that area it may have a different look to them. Even though whenever i go to places like the Falls i still take pictures like a tourist. haha.
Another interesting detial i felt was worth noting was the pictures of the modern day buildings and the peoples dressed in the traditional wear around those buildings. Its like a person from a tribe in africa dressing in their tribal dress and you see them using a cell phone something along that line. Cultures that have been around since the begining of time that have survived into the modern day age. Or the picture of the car in the back and the two people praying in the middle of the sidewalk. thats a really interesting juxtaposieing. we dont know what the circumstances are, did they pull over and do that, were they walking by and just stoped? who knows. Good stuff.

Responce to Joe's presentation on DAWOUD BEY

So Joe was nice enough to send us the link via email for Mr. Bey's website to listen to the audio. I went back to listen to Kevin's blurb, the kid we talked about in class, and it defintly put the picture into more context that way than just reading it. It does what its supposed to do, which is give these kids a voice to be heard. I do think that is important and would be much better to see it in the gallery setting though. It does seem like it was kind of rehersed alittle though and i'm certian he asked him a bunch of questions most likely and just chose one that went well with the picture. I like the work as a whole and gives a nice commentary to social/urban peoples. I really think that what kevin says makes sense in a bad english sense and holds true to life in general, although i can not relate to his situation i certinaly can understand his thought process. I also would like to say that Dawoud is one of the coolest names ever!

class yesterday

I really feel that we had a good discussion yesterday. but i really feel that the same 5 people always talk, i would like to hear from people who dont talk that much.
I personally liked the work of Tim White. I think that his pictures are great. In photography i dont really think that their always has to have some deep meaning to a photograph. Why cant we take pictures that are just what they are? Last semister thats what i had a piff about with my classes. I wanted to take nice postcard pictures that are "what you see is what you get" type photograph.there isnt any hidden deep meaning. its just a picture of a beautiful sunset. This is a picture i took in the adirondack mts. this past summer.
Whites pictures are celebrity pictures. Pictures of famous people. I'm fine with that. I do agree with the statement about some of his pictures being compared to senior pictures. But i also agree with the fact that because his work is so straight foward there cant be much to say about the
"art theory" aspect of his pictuers.

class on wedensday

So i have never heard of that benniton ad thing before. i think its really interesting and serves for a good purpose. What question i bring up is if it goes under the category of propoganda or for an anti-ad? as for the propoganda its more of an awareness ad more than anything i think. I'm sure not everybody really thinks about that kind of stuff all the time. If only the ads reach even one person it does its job. its controversial so that brings up the point of why it isnt in the US much. we never have alot of those ads here. i think if i was driving down the highway and i saw the ad with the nun and preist kissing i'd probabily do a double take and think to my self. what the heck? as well as the one that really grabbed my attention was the black woman breast feeding the two kids. thats something we would never see in the states. especially say in our southern ones. its really a touchy subject still even though we are in the 21st century.

Past due blog, monday, april 2nd

the picture of the kid sitting on the ground and the photographers all around him....my thoughts since i didnt get to talk. We were discussing ethics of this situation. i think that its ok for this scene to be staged because i think its something that could happen if someone didnt intervine and hlep their situation.
if the situation was actually real then that would be a different story. it would depend on the ethics of the photographer. really it is not his/her job to provide these people with help or food. not as a photogapher anyways. as a human, thats a different issue. when we see people in help or need we should help them. the only bad part of this situation is that the person is not should we say qualified or trained to help possibly then they could be worsening the situation. i saw a movie, i cant think of the name, but it was one of the recent war movies where there was a photojournalist with the troops and he was there when they got attacked and the soliders gave him a weapon. that photographer should be trained in some kind if they choose to go to the battle. he was just there to take pictures not fight the enemy. so those are my thoughts. stay tuned for more!

Past Blog Catch up 2.5 Sontag...

Yea.... so the first part of this essay is about the debate on photography as an art form which we've discussed to death so i'm not going to get into that.

ummm....So I know who Susan Sontag is and I do respect her but I honestly think her writing is merly just opinion and observation really. And although she brings up alot of good points its really hard for me to take her seriously because she is not a photographer or even a photo critic. Its really just like me saying i was an expert of food or a chef, but i dont cook food, prepare it or even watch them make it. I just like to eat the food... but thats about it. So I've decided to write an essay about what i think.wow, that was harsh of me, but thats just my opinion.

I agree with her when she says that there are an unlimitied number of pictures to take, cause there are so many different views its insane.
The idea of comparing a camera to a gun on the other hand, wow, its a crazy analogy but the fact that we use terms like 'shoot' and 'load' and how we 'aim' our cameras at things and then take the picture. thats an interesting idea. So those are just a few of the points that I wanted to talk about. thanks for reading.

Past Blog Catch up 2.12 Man With a Movie Camera

I really enjoyed watching this movie. I think that for the time period it was done in it was way ahead of its time. In this movie the camera and the camera man go pretty much everywhere possible. I find this newly discoverd idea of ordinary people seeing things that you normally wouldnt see in everyday life extraordinary. Its like when video was first taken on the Moon, that must have been crazy to be watching that liveish. Just because for centuries humans were trying to reach the moon. Much like our modern day Mars missions as well. With this guy climbing up smoke stacks and going into really hot conditons with the extent of basicaly being in a volcano kinda all that molten metal just in the air. Crazy! That was my faveorite part. NOT to mention this crazy notion of the fact that this crazy cameraman,ha, had yet ANOTHER guy following him around recording him! OH MAN that is just awesome. two crazy guys. shouldnt it be call "the men with the movie camears"? lol.

Past Blog catch up 1.31, Benjamin/Political Ecodmy of the Photograph

As true as it may seem or whatever I really just think that its a coincidence that socialists and photography emerged at/around the same time. Maybe thats because i'm into democracy and what not though.
Anyways I wana just say that i didnt really enjoy reading this chapter, thank goodness it was short. I really had a hard time reading it because i didnt feel like listening to all of that socilist/communist bullshit. Thats basically the way i fell about this jargen. I understand the importance of it though the points made about the debate on photography as a fine art form was interesting. It really depends on the way people want to view the photograph in my opinion.

America, Seen through Photographs...darkly

I really enjoyed this read alot. There is so much in this i'm going to talk about a few things i liked. Right off the bat they talk about what makes a beautiful photograph. "a beautiful photograph is a photograph of something beautiful like a woman, a sunset." in Whitmans' words " each precise object or condition or combonation or process exhibits a beauty" Have you ever heard of the term " beauty is in the eye of the beholder" ? well i think that is what they are trying to say here. Some people think that a sunset is beautiful, which i think it is, others also think the rotting corpse of a dead animal or a chicken fetus is beauty, which i dont really. everybody has a different definiton of the term "beauty".
The importance of a photograph. They bring up the discussion of that by photographing an object or a place it makes it important. I think this is kind of true.... I wouldnt really take a picture of somethig if it didnt catch my eye or attention.
Going along with the theme of beauty I liked that they were talking about Walker Evans photographs being all beautiful no matter what he took pictures of either a victorian house or buildings in alabama towns.
The "Family Man" exhibit is something that I would have loved to been around to see. I think that it goes with the theme of America being A. a melting pot of so many diverse different peoples as well as all people are created equally and have freedom. Cause that is around the time of civil rights and what not. Diane Arbus's work on the other hand says the exact opposite of this, i dont agree with her work but respect it as well.

Past Blog Catch up 1.24 Baudelaire "The Painter of Modern Life"

Ummmmm, yea..... I really didnt understand this article much....I think it is written very well and proper. Thats about it... I really wish i had more to say about it. Who is this M.G. character? I think if i had more information about this it maybe would have made a little more sense. One thing i think i caught onto was that this was an article about the way this unknown artist goes about viewing the world. When it mentions "Convalesence is like a return to childhood" and “The child sees everything as a novelty; the child is always 'drunk'. Nothing is more like what we call inspiration than the joy the child feels in drinking in shape and colour.” that part maybe is talking about seeing the way a child sees.

Past Blog Catch up 1.22 Photography as an art..

Well my thoughts on this topic are that I do think that photography is art in some circumstances. For a photograph to be considered art or artistic it should have the qualities that deem it "fine art" these pictures are possibly made in a certian way, useing various darkroom/photoshop techniques. For example i'll say that an artistic photograph maybe maniupulated with cepiatone or using a vignetting around the picture. where as taking your pictures to wegmans to get develped may be not as artistic. Something like say the nude as an art form...i defintly think that there is a difference between something like Man Ray's nudes and a nude one would fine in Playboy.
But then again what do we consider art anyways? In france there was a man, for the life of me i cant remeber it, who put a toilet on the wall of an art gallery and called it art. Is it art because its in an art gallery? if so, anyone can do that. Example some people have a huge conterversy over Jackson Pollok's art work, of which i love, being just paint thrown on canvis. When i was at the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh there was a piece of copper that he pissed on and called it art. to me that was crossing the limits.

Past Blog catch up 1.29, general intro "thinking about photography:the photograph"

I guess i'll start off by giving my opinion on this subject. The simple idea(s) behind a photograph is/are to me at least: captureing moments in history/documenting something, painting with light/the definition, art, journalistic and candid. I try not to really look too deep into this concept for i think it will drive one insane.
On this issue I agree with Berger's saying "photography is rather like memory." He states that the photograph, when its real and not tricked, its a memory of the past.
I like the wording about criticism when Eagleton says we arent concerned with the history of photography but the histories of ideas about photography. To me that means that when photography was created that brought about a whole bunch of theories that are just as important as tracking the timeline of photo.
I also agree with the ideas of Victor Burgin discussing the variety of photographic studies. I think its saying that there is the general theory of photography but also theories for all of the different areas.

Famous Icons

Well I think a really interesting topic is the 'Icon' or iconic image. Today we discussed the iconic value of Che Quivera. I would like to talk about an icon that has had alot of imapct in my life, Superman. The icon of superman spans from 1933-present day. I'll start of with the man of steel himself. He has been adapted into radio shows, comic strips, comic books, tv shows, movies, cartoons, grapic novels and even broadway...pretty much any kind of media outlet superman has dominated. The icon of superman stands fof "truth, justice and the american way". its all about image as well, superman is the all american type hero with bright colors, big broad shoulders, brown hair blue eyes, muscular, smart. he is also one of the only superheros to actually hide his real identity with a costume instead of say batman who is actualy mr.wayne dressed up as batman. superman is dressed up as clark kent, ha. in his movies and comics superman is shown holding the American Flag which is a iconic image for America. In the newest movie some people refrenced or promoted kind of superman as a christ like figure. one of the first movie trailers refrences marlin brando talkig about superman bringing people light and hope. Similartieds, and i'm a nerd for knowing all of this :(1) Superman's real name is Kal-El and his father's name is Jor-El. The "El" should sound familiar, it means God in Hebrew. (2) Superman's father is quoted, “They [Earth] only need the light to show them the way. For this reason, and this reason only, I have sent you, my only son.” Thus paraphrasing John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” (3) Jesus (of Nazareth) and Superman (of Smallville) both grew up in obscure small towns, and began their Earthly ministry at the age of 30. So onto a more important issue of the Iconic value of the Superman "S". I'm betting that this symbol if shown to pretty much anybody in the world they would be able to identify it. So i think thats enough about that.

David Levi Strauss Intro and Ch. 1

I really enjoy reading John Berger but in this introduction to the book I didnt really find what he wasy talking about releveant to photography at all. It seemed more just bitching about Tyrannical Rulers, which yes I agree is not a good thing, but it just didnt really realte to taking pictures much for me.
Ch. 1: documentary debate: aesthetic or anaesthetic?
This was related to photography more i felt. The part that got my attention was when they were talking about Salgado's photos and how they go about it in the San Fransisco Museum of Modern art's catalog. "in hurried visits to scenes of despair or violence, they climb out of the plane or helicopoter, press the shutter release, explode the flash: they shoot and run." I think that is a great description of how some photographers might do things. They just are there to get a picture, there isnt really any kind of thought that goes into it cause they dont want to get to involved. Can we blam them? i dont think that the photographer should put their life in danger to get a good picture. You have to be safe. I'm sure others would disagree with me because there are always 2 sides to everything. But then again i cant speak from experience i dont take pictures like that. so i guess you would never know until you are in that situation what exactly you are going to do.

Thirdness...

So I was researching this topic and came up with a website: http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/thirdness.html

A few of the examples struck my interest : Thirdness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, in bringing a second and third into relation to each other.

Thirdness is the triadic relation existing between a sign, its object, and the interpreting thought, itself a sign, considered as constituting the mode of being of a sign.

Now I'm not going to lie and say that I really understand this concept to the fullest, cause I'm still really confused, despite the fact that it is 4:30am. Cheers!

Evidence, Truth, and Order

I think that the "truth" of a photograph is as much as one can see in it...If the pictures is not manipulated in any way shape or form then it is the truth to some extent. Just a plain photograph is the truth at the vantage point of the photographer. Its the truth in that second the pictures is taken. Its captureing that moment in history forever as evidence of what was occuring at that time. Everything though has control on the interpretation of this truth and order. The time of day, setting or background, shadows, the light, the angle of the photo ect.

The Digital Age..thoughts on mondays class

At the end of our last class we were discussing the transition into the digital works. I thought it was interesting to hear the term "googleization" as well. Mostly because its a search engine that is so new. I recall when Yahoo or ask geeves were the main ones. We live in a society that is digital. I think it is very important to keep libraries like the one we visited but its also nice to have that stuff online so that if someone in California wants to see what we have they dont have actually come to Buffalo to view it. I think that we will always have these original prints but at the same time its more likely that the digital thing is what we will be refrencing. Sort of like we were discussing with the Mona Lisa. How we can see the real thing if we go to it, but we can also see that online, as much as the real experience is nice for research purposes its ok to have it digital. There is a whole market for digital text books as well. Instead of going to the bookstore just download it online and its always avalible. And if you really want it print it out. I think thats where that is headed.

Material Culture

I think that "material culture" is very similar to anthropology or archeology in at least looking at time periods or use. I agree with the article when it says anything can be a material posession from your car to the contents of your kitchen. Things one uses on a daily basis, are considered material posessions but i dont think they are extravagant in any way like a tooth brush or a hair brush. Unless of corse if they are made of solid gold or something like that. But then again that is one of those things the article talked about that could possibly point to someones status in society.

In terms of material things that "speak" i think that ancient cultures posessions can do just that. Studying Greek Anthropolgy/archeology I have come to learn about such items. They used the burial ritual of cremation when someone passed for people of high class. The passed away was buried with material posessions such as jewlerly and wine cups. Sometimes if it was speical like a hero or something that person would get buried with his horse and weapons. That was a great honor.
It is a very interdiscillinary study that goes back long time and will continue in the future.

First days of classes...

Well I've just completed my first few days of classes, I'm pretty excited about this semister, I mean its my last one, other than that though , I think i'm going to like all of my classes, especially those photo classes, I'm actually going to learn something for once ha. no comment,
:-X . haha, anyways, just sitting here waiting for jessica to get here and then going to go to walmart to get a lock for a locker at the UB alumni Gym cause i'm going to be starting to work out today with my buddy dave there. should be good, since its one of my resolutions to start exersizing more, ha. well better late than never ehhh? anyways, going to go have a bowl of some cereal we have in the apt. so till the next time,
peace, love and applesauce! - murray