Diane Arbus/Barrett

In Diane Arbus's photography she focuses more on vulger photography symbolizing her love for the way she herself grew up feeling unwanted and distant from her family. In Elizabeth Barretts documentary she talked about how children were triggered as "unhappy and unstable" growing up in families where they didn't have money and people outside of the "poor world" considered them to be unhappy with their lives and scared to be themselves. In Diane Arbus's photography she makes her subjects visible to the eye by appealing their sense of the unknown. Much like the people presented in Elizabeth Arbus's documentary the people didn't necessarily want to be put out in the media as "poor". In both the texts, the two share a common interest in perhaps shaming the people presented in the texts by not seeking approval from the subjects and not finding a way to get out in the media that there is a problem with poverty but without shaming the people publicly. Photography has the ability to change the way people think about themselves and others creating a powerful judgment among the human race. Much like Hobert Ison in the documentary of Hugh O' Connor, the people in Diane Arbus's photos appear to be unaware and bothered by something in their lives. Diane is putting out the problems with people and putting thier issues out publicly. Knowing this, is it safe to say that the film makers and photographers take advantage of the issues with people, photographing them and filming them saying "this is what's out there in the world and this is the problem, here are the people". It's easy to say that people today don't know how to present the problems in the world without putting shame to the people.

Carr

In Nicholas Carr's essay "Is google making us stupid" He proposes that reading online texts can inhabit the way you think after long terms of surfing the web and reading articles for long periods of time. Carr seems to think that the web effects the cognitive parts of the brain, making people less aware that they are skimming paragraphs. In Carr's essay he says "The brain has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.” (par.13) Carr seems to be saying that, once a brain breaks a connection, it forms a new one. When on the computer for hours and hours at a time it seems that people presented in Carr's examples have experienced headaches, and problems seeing after being on a computer for hours at a time. "Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating 'like computers.' But the changes, go much deeper than metaphor. Thanks to our brain’s plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological level." (par. 16) Carr seems to be saying that in today's age we seems to refer to our brains as computers, the more information the hold and the longer it stays there, the easier we can access it after long periods of time. In ten years if we come across something we haven't studied in over ten years we can sometimes easily remember how to do it or recover information we read over ages ago. Today computers have made accessing information a whole lot easier in seconds. Students today can access a book in seconds and read the whole book in a matter of five pages making studying a whole lot easier but missing the key points in the book. "It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV. " (par. 17) subsequently enough, our brains are our computers and can hold information for as long as we can remember.

In Clive Thompson's article "The New Literacy" he explains how technology is creating a new generation of writing. Back in the day people rarely wrote anything outside of class, unless it had to do with class they pretty much wrote nothing. He talks about Andrea Lundsford a professor at Stanford University, she did a project to see how technology affects students academic writing. What she found was that students are writing ALOT more outside of class now than ever before, and that they are not using their texting or email language in the academic writing that they are creating. Thompson explains how students today enjoy writing more today because they get to write to an audience that they want to write too. At school they have to write to one person and that is the teacher. But when they write outside of school they can write to whom ever they please. Students can write what ever they want as well, its not just about a specific topic like they would have to do in a class assignment.
In my own opinion I believe that technology is killing our ability to right. Its not that it is affecting our academic writing, but it is teaching us other things about writing, and to me it is creating a whole new level of procrastination. Having all the new social networking devices, makes me not want to write a whole 5 page essay, I would rather chat with my friends on Facebook or Myspace. Where before they had technology students would write their essays then go do something. But since the internet has become so easy to access my 8 year old cousin even knows how to use it.

Stranger with a Camera Summary

Both Larry Daressa's review and ITVS’ interpretation of the Stranger with a Camera documentary thoroughly and accurately describe Elizabeth Barret, the director/producer's objective in making the film. Daressa mentions Barret's key inquiry and reason for making the documentary, and that is, “'What are the responsibilities of any of us who take images of other people and put them to our own uses?'” (Daressa) ITVS talks of Appalachia, the place in the film that inspired the question, and the murder within that made one mostly poor, mining mountain town famous. Daressa explains how film maker Hugh O'Connor's death related to and supported Barret’s claim about the responsibilities of film makers and photographers. He continues on to explain that the murderer, local Hobart Ison, was passive about the matter: “At his trial he made the novel claim that he had shot O'Connor in self-defense in order to avoid character assassination by camera: 'I had to do it. What would he have done to me picture-wise and all?' Ison not only owned the land, but he clearly believed he owned what was said about it and about the people who lived on it.” (Daressa) When he brought this up, it appeared that he had the intention of portraying Ison's reasoning, and making the connection of why Barret used the murder as an unsettlingly real example of the point of view a subject might take if they were being exploited. Daressa talked about one of the only people shown in the film who was all for the camera coverage in Appalachia as much as Ison was against it, and that was Mason Elbridge. Mason's stance was that the camera was a tool to educate people fairly about every walk of life. This talk leads to Daressa putting his thoughts in that photographers can only capture small pieces of a community, and that a community as a whole can't be defined by one group the photographer happens to capture and use as the label for the community. His review also articulates how Barret believes photography and film making, specifically ethnography leads to the warping and misrepresentation of the community, while ignoring the true purpose or bigger picture of the ethnography, which in this case was fixing problems of importance. Daressa finally gets to the answer Barret finds to her question, which is just to stay true to the story and represent all points of view. Daressa claims heavily that he believes Barret is naïve in thinking that objectivity in filmmaking can be obtained. Yet, he seems to stand by the feeling that she has the innate ability of not taking out her own personal woes regarding the community that she speaks of in the documentary, which she happened to grow up in and was part of her motivation for creating the documentary. So, she herself was following her own advice about having open-ended objectivity as an element of her own document.

-Tristin

Stranger with a Camera

In Elizabeth Barret's production “Stranger with a Camera”she tells her story of being on both ends of the camera. A main part of the story is an event that occurred between Huge and a property owner. Huge went on the mans property to document the lifestye, and was shot for it. Barret expressed her conflict with describing both sides of the story fairly and equally. One of the main topics of the video was the reporting on poverty and the trials reporters faced. Reporters didn’t want to put local people in embarrassing situations in front of their neighbors, so they didn’t photograph poor people. Barret asked herself the question, “can you show poverty without shaming the people?” Huge even lost his life trying to do so.
I believe that this question is Barrets main focus of her production. Although, she never directly answered the question. I think that she wanted her viewers to think for themselves about how you can present the life of Americans in a raw way without shaming them while they’re under hard times. Also, she wanted to question how to show America as “America the great” while showing it not to be what it really seems, just as Huge set out to do through his career.

Stranger with a Camera

In the documentary of "Stranger with a camera" Elizabeth Barrett seems to be pointing out the poverty issues in Kentucky and the media's attention toward the poor and how it "must be shown". Children of Kentucky were generally poor and had raggedy clothes, they we're hungry and sometimes bored. When Film makers caught children eating dirt, they assumed it was because they were hungry when in fact they were just being kids. Some believe that "suffering becomes worth a good image". In Elizabeth Barretts documentary she seems to point out the key factors associated in documentary, media, and film making when dealing with the attention span towards being able to show off other people's issues rather than ones own. In the documentary I noticed that hobert was still praised for even after the murder, "Hobert came from a community tht loved him and even loved him after he killed somebody". At Hoberts trial he continued to say that he shot Hugh O' Conner out of pure self defense. I think that both Hugh and Hobert were wrong in the situation, it could have easily been avoided and Hugh could have asked for Hoberts permission in shooting the documentary on Hoberts property. Hobert could have denied Hugh and nothing could have happened, but it didn't happen that way. The people of Kentucky wanted to continue to live the "American Dream" which was simply just happiness, and comfort. The people of Kentucky didn't care whether they had a low paying job as long as they knew the value of the things they worked for and worked hard to get themselves where they're at today. Photography is what makes art today, and even if that means showing off the flaws off todays social, and environmental change then that calls for great photography and film making. When dealing with film and the media, some take advantage of the fact that they have a camera in their hands and don't consider that people don't necessarily want to be seen on film as being "poor" and "low class" because of the embarressment and shame it causes, much like Hobert in the documentary. People loved Hobert, and Hobert simply didn't want to be humiliated on film. Hugh was a film maker and probably never thought about the way film could hurt familes and make them feel ashamed for all they have worked for.

Stranger with a Camera

"Stranger with a Camera" By Elizabeth Barret is a video about a filmmaker named Hugh O'Connor and the man who killed him named Hobart Ison. The film started out slow and was kind of confusing at the beginning but everything tied together at the end. Hugh O'Connor was a Canadian filmmaker. He traveled all over his daughter claims, filming children and adults in different communities. O'Connor once filmed a 10 year old girl, and showed her how to use the camera; he even gave her a few of the pictures. In his daughters eyes i can infer that she saw him as a great man. By what she says I agree and I do not think that he should have died. Hobart Ison was a man who owned a lot of land. He never wanted anyone on his land, it was his and he especially didn't want any camera people are it. One day Hugh O'Connor and some of his staff were drove by a house on Ison's land, there was a man named Mason Eldridge at the house along with his children. A woman, who saw Hugh and his crew filming on Ison's land, reported it to Ison. Ison came rushing to the area where they were. He had a gun he shot it a few times and told them to get off of his land. As they were being rushed to leave Hugh turned around to say that they were leaving, when Hobart Ison shot his gun right in Hugh's chest. He was dead, Hobart was put on trial, he was sentenced to 10 years of jail but after one he was given parole. Hobart Ison believe that Hugh O'Connor deserved what he got, Hobart was only trying to protect his land. "Land meant more to Hobart than money" one of his relatives explained in the film. Film makers wanted to film Appalachia to show the poverty in Kentucky, but the community there did not want to be put on the spot light.