Photography and Text by Sharon Wang, Copyright 2021
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Love is a Decision
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“Ah, Moon – and Star!
You are very far –
But were no one
Farther than you –
Do you think I’d stop
For a firmament
Or a Cubit – or so?”
The decision to love is never an easy one to make. It is a mutual commitment from each person that chooses to be in love. The story in this series exhibits a girl who is deeply in love. The setting is my room, where all my emotions are witnessed.
Just by looking at the Polaroids on the wall saturates the room with the smell of sweets, the sound of laughter and the sensation of rising adrenaline. Love offers us the highest highs and it is the energy that gets people through the tedious work. It is the happy annoyance of choosing what to wear for a date. However, love is also a poison.
There is no way for two individuals to share the completely same emotions, and that is when miscommunication and disconnection comes into play. The sadness and disappointment that accompanies the fact that some of our love is not being echoed compels the individual to do silly things — like talking to stuffed animals, wondering what they are thinking, or using substances. Love sometimes loops us into despair. However, the only antidote of love is love itself. It is a touch, a kiss and being in the vicinity of the person on your mind.
After all, love is a decision that we make. It is a fancy trap that lures everyone that falls for it to enter the swirl of every possible feeling, but hey, it is love.
“But, Moon, and Star,
Though you’re very far –
There is one – farther than you –
He – is more than firmament – from Me –
So I can never go!”
— Poem by Emily Dickson, #240
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About The Author: Sharon Wang is a sophomore enrolled at Haverford College, Haverford, Pa.
An Exploration: Alabama Tenant Farmer’s Wife (Allie MaeBurroughs)
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This report will explore one of Walker Evans’s most famous works, Alabama Tenant Farmer’s Wife (Allie Mae Burroughs) through historical and analytical lenses to uncover why the photograph is so powerful and timeless. I will begin with a brief biographical sketch of Walker Evans and the historical context behind Allie Mae Burroughs. Next, I will discuss how the medium and presentation of the photograph affect its impression on the viewer. I will then argue that this photograph is best viewed through the lens of “detail” as defined in John Szarkowski’s The Photographer’s Eye. Finally, I will then discuss how the other four lenses in The Photographer’s Eye come together to make this photograph as significant and emotive as it is.
Walker Evans: Biographical and Historical Context
Walker Evans was able to fuse the realism and rawness of the American experience with sophisticated and thoughtful photographic techniques that let the meaning of the images shine through. Walker was born in Saint Louis in 1903 and was interested in art in multiple forms for his entire life. Eventually, Evans turned to photography and found success working with the Resettlement Administration (RA)/Farm Security Administration (FSA). But to understand the significance of this work, it is important to first discuss why a government agency hired Walker Evans to document rural American lives.
The Great Depression left rural farmers particularly vulnerable, and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration sought to relocate farmers to areas where they could be more productive (which helped both the farmers and the economy at large). To incentivize these moves, the Resettlement Administration and later the Farm Security Administration hired photographers like Walker Evans, Dortohea Lange, and Marion Post Walcott to highlight the opportunities that were available to those who chose to move. Whether or not Evans and others followed the wishes of the RA/FSA, is dubious, nevertheless the situations the FSA contracts provided Evans were unique and historically important giving rise to Allie Mae Burroughs and other photographs like it.
A final note about the subject of the photograph. Allie Mae Burroughs was the wife of a tenant farmer. A tenant farmer, for context, was a farmer who farmed rented land and left some of the profits for the landlord. These farmers faced the challenge of not having property to fall back on during the Great Depression, so they were targeted by the RA/FSA because they were hit harder than most during the Great Depression.
Medium and Presentation
The photograph as displayed in the Lutnick fine arts center at Haverford College is a gelatin silver print that is 9.1”x7.1”. The gelatin silver print offers the print longevity and adequate gloss to accentuate the lowlights in the print. This medium is important because the texture on the background wall and patterns in the subject’s shirt benefit from the additional pop that the glossy gelatin provides. The print is also over matted with a beveled edge on the window which subtly draws the viewer’s eye in towards the subject while the large over mat gives the viewer plenty of space to see the print in isolation. The size of the print is worth noting as well. 9.1”x7.1” is not particularly large but still leaves enough room for the background to be seen in isolation. Additionally, the size is not so large that the totality of the image is hard to view.
The final component of the medium and presentation is the quality of the print itself. The print has strong contrast without making the subject or background seem unnatural. Without access to the negative, it is hard to say how the qualities of the print were achieved. However, the print may be burned in some areas (particularly around the subject) to make the subject stand out from the wall behind her.
“The Detail” in Alabama Tenant Farmer’s Wife
In John Szarkowski’s The Photographers Eye, he acknowledges that the photographer is limited in ways that other artists are not. Photographers are restricted to represent what they see, not what they wish to see. Sometimes, the setting that the photographer finds themselves in is scattered and inconsistent. The photographer is a curator and must decide which elements of the setting are worth including in the frame and which are not. Szarkowski writes about the photographer: “From reality before him he could only choose the part that seemed relevant or consistent, and that would fill his plate” (Szarkowski 2009, 42). Working for the FSA documenting the entirety of the American experience, “the detail” is immensely important. The world that Evans documented was inconsistent and fragmented, so selecting the parts that held together made for powerful photographs.
Alabama Tenant Farmer’s Wife provides little in the way of context which is why it is well suited to be analyzed through “the detail”. The subject is dressed plainly and is photographed directly against a wooden wall. The photograph does not provide any recognizable information about where the photograph was taken geographically. Furthermore, it does not provide any information about where the photograph was taken even on a local scale. The subject’s proximity to their background makes it unclear whether or not the subject is photographed at their place of residence, work (which was likely the same for a farmer), or worship. This creates an ambiguity in the image that allows the viewer to analyze the nuances of the subject and the background without analyzing its political and social contexts. However, the ambiguity creates universality and relatability. The background could be at anyone’s house and the enigmatic expression on the subject makes the photo both universal and timeless. The Met Museum describes the subject’s expression as having the “psychological ambiguity of a Mona Lisa” ( Metropolitan Museum of Art). In addition, the subject’s hair is somewhat unkempt, which heightens the organicness and relatability of the photograph.
Another component that heightens the effect of “the detail” in this shot is the use of depth of field. Both the subject and the background are in focus which allows all of the areas of the image to be viewed in isolation. The depth of field brings out the subtleties in the texture of the wood and the subject’s clothes. The viewer’s eye is not forced to a certain in-focus area and can peruse the details of the image at its own pace.
All of these components come together to make the image an experience that is meant to be felt, not dissected and make “the detail” the dominant characteristic of this photograph.
Szarkowski’s Other Four Characteristics
Now I will more briefly discuss how the other characteristics in The Photographer’s Eye can be applied to this photograph for a richer understanding of its impact. First and foremost is “the thing itself” which Szarkowski describes as the relationship between that which is actual and seen versus that which is captured in the photograph. The photographer must filter out certain things and accept that certain potentially unwanted things might be in the frame to capture other elements. Walker Evans, as previously mentioned keeps the subject close to his background leaving little room for external distractions in the image. Yet in the image, Walker is also forced to tell only one piece of the subject’s life. The subject is expression, physique, and clothing are what we have to go on, so Walker’s selection of this print must encapsulate some meaningful component of the subject’s life.
We already discussed “the detail”, so the next topic is “the frame.” The frame of this image does not draw too much attention to itself and the way the shot is laid out seems to suggest that the wooden wall continues for many feet in all directions outside of the frame’s boundary. I believe that this has the effect of making the subject feel like a small part of the scene and the world as a whole. However, the crisp portraiture allows for the details in the subject to show while using the frame to accentuate that there is nuance even in the unseen.
Szarkowski’s fourth category is “time” which I think is quite present in this photograph, albeit not in the usual way. Usually, images evoking a sense of time use movement and blur to show evolution over time. This image takes almost the opposite approach. Even without close inspection, this feels like an image from the Great Depression. The image captures a moment in time felt by all Americans, instead of the movement of one. In many ways, the Great Depression was a period where time stood still, and this moment, frozen in time captures that feeling in an ineffable way.
Finally, Szarkowski discusses “vantage point”. Usually, this is taken quite literally, as in when a photographer takes a picture from a physical place that is outside of the usual context we view the world. Vantage point manifests itself in two ways for me in this image. First, the RA/FSA put Walker Evans into situations where he was essentially foreign and saw the world from a very different perspective to those who lived there. This gave Walker Evans a unique vantage point for each of the photographs he took, even when shooting unadorned portraiture.
The other component of vantage point that I see is even more general. Walker Evans’s body of work for the RA/FSA gave other Americans a vantage point into the diversity of experience that their country held and still holds. The modern accessibility of photography both amateur and professional understates the power that Evans’s work held when it was first released. These photographs were some people’s only contact with rural America. His work captured a fleeting moment in time still sends a powerful message even 80 years on.
Citations:
Szarkowski, John, “The Photographer’s Eye,” The Museum of Modern Art, 2009
Wikipedia contributors, “Resettlement Administration,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Resettlement_Administration&oldid=101005462 4 (accessed March 20, 2021).
Author unknown, “Walker Evans (1903–1975),” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/evan/hd_evan.htm (accessed March 20, 2021).
Author unknown, “Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/284685 (accessed March 20, 2021).
Wikipedia contributors, “Farm Security Administration,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Farm_Security_Administration&oldid=10044463 12 (accessed March 20, 2021).
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About The Author:Aaron Graybill is a junior enrolled at Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania. Majoring in Economics.
Professor Tony Ward Lecturing at Haverford College
Text by Artur Meyster, Copyright 2021
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The Future Of Education: How New Technologies Will Affect The Way We Learn
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During the coronavirus lockdown, organizations face a challenging situation. Since they needed to close their offices, most couldn’t operate. However, several leaned on tech professionals and new technologies to survive. Because remote work became the new normal, the way we live, work, and learn has changed. Tech tools like smartphones and laptops are now a must-have, and the need for technical skills has increased.
Day after day, more companies are investing in emerging tech inventions not only to improve their processes but to offer better products and services. In the education sector, e-learning is leaving traditional education behind. However, many other new technologies are reinventing teaching and learning. If you want to know how the future of education will look like, you should read this article. It will provide you with a better idea of how new technologies will affect the education sector.
Video-based Learning
In the digital era, video-assisted teaching is playing an essential role in making students feel engaged. Several companies have implemented it to enhance their courses and provide even better services. Video-based learning enables companies to analyze offered curricula and set new strategies to improve their teaching methods.
Video-based learning makes the learning process much more enjoyable. Everyone can have fun while playing and learning. For example, Youtube Kids is a top-rated app that almost every kid loves. Since young children can watch visually appealing videos, learn new songs, and play, learning while playing will no longer be challenging.
Other companies like Udacity offer excellent video-assisted coding courses for those who seek to break into the tech world. Its courses are very engaging and enable students to repeat every lesson as many times as they want. If a particular lesson becomes a challenge, you can watch it several times until you feel you’re able to move on.
Video-based learning will shape the future of education because it helps companies provide more personalized services. Students can learn faster and provide even better results. Video-assisted programs also give individuals schedule flexibility. For that reason, no matter how busy your schedule is, you’ll always have time to learn. After all, who hasn’t learned how to repair something by watching a five-minute Youtube video?
Online Classrooms
Cloud computing is taking online education to a whole new level. Years ago, if you weren’t able to attend a class, you probably needed to ask your classmates what the teacher said and taught. However, with online classrooms, education is becoming more accessible. Online classrooms enhance the interaction between students and teachers. By simplifying teaching and learning, you can set up classes in only minutes. Furthermore, communication isn’t a barrier, and you can send updates to parents or any individual in real-time.
Online classrooms also make providing feedback much more comfortable. Teachers can store frequently used comments, and, as a result, providing fast and personalized responses isn’t a struggle. Online classrooms provide organizations with data security. Hence, no matter what they need to keep protected, they can stay calm and focus on the important thing—reinventing the market.
The increasing demand for online platforms like Google Classrooms has encouraged organizations to hunt for tech professionals with software engineering and cloud computing skills. Therefore, if you’re looking to attract employers’ attention, you should consider becoming a software engineer. According to Bootcamp Rankings, there are over 19,200 open job listings and 1,000 hiring companies.
Artificial Intelligence: the Key to Personalized Education
These days, artificial intelligence is transforming everything, from mobile applications to manufacturing procedures and learning. Personalized education is key to increase students’ engagement. Hence, many companies have invested vast amounts of money in AI and machine learning to offer more customized services.
Personalized education wouldn’t be possible without the help of data scientists. Consequently, companies are offering exceptional salaries and perks to skilled candidates. After all, they can analyze and interpret gathered information to meet students’ needs.
AI chatbots are also playing an important role in education. By automating administrative tasks like grading, the job of teachers is now more comfortable. AI chatbots can also track student performance. Consequently, teachers and companies can adjust the curriculum provided to meet the requirements of any student.
Conclusion
Generally speaking, the need for digital tools will grow in the next decade. In that case, if you seek to stay relevant, you should get familiar with new tech inventions. Also, more companies will invest in tech to improve in-class and out-of-class experiences. As a result, education will become much more engaging and comfortable. Traditional education will probably become obsolete in the following years. Nevertheless, there’s still a long way to go before that happens.
I really fear for the future of our country if something isn’t done to stop the insanity of our American educational system. One thing that sticks in my mind from my time in Germany is the education of the young people I met there, and their interest in and engagement with culture.
Two German friends my age, Hans and Erika, have a daughter, Gisela. Last time I saw her was in 2002, when she was in her early twenties. She took me to meet her friends, who were full of questions about America, and took advantage of my availability to pump me over beer and wurst. They knew more about the US than most people here of similar age, and asked insightful questions. And, they all could speak good English! It’s taught in their schools. How many young Americans could carry on an intelligent conversation in another language?
What brought this to my mind was an article in THE WEEK magazine. The Oregon Department of Education is telling teachers to take a class called “dismantling racism in mathematics.” Yes, you read that right, racism in mathematics!
The course instructs teachers that “the focus on getting the ‘right’ answer and requiring students to show their work,” are actually “toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture.” Teachers are told “not to perpetuate objectivity by upholding ideas that there are always right and wrong answers.”
I’m not making up this lunacy, wish that could be the case.
Apparently, kids today can’t handle being told they’re wrong about anything, and for teachers to insist on correct answers is racist. Notice that they put ‘right’ in quotation marks, as though it is somehow subjective. It may be subjective in the social sciences, but in mathematics? If the United States is to continue its preeminent position on the world stage, we need generations of young people who can handle the disappointments of the real world, a world that won’t coddle them.
Teachers in my generation insisted on right answers, and our egos weren’t too fragile to take the consequences of being wrong.
I’m liberal in my social views, but this goes far beyond liberalism into insanity. No wonder the rest of the world thinks all Americans are dumb hicks!
Since at least ancient Egypt and Greece , mathematics, the science of numbers, has been held in high regard. Philosophers studied and admired the purity of mathematics and geometry. These old guys worked out the rules of mathematics, and discovered most of the higher math we rely on today. Their success relied on getting the right answers. Using rules of mathematics and geometry, they worked out the diameter of the Earth using nothing more sophisticated than the sun’s light shining into two deep wells. They were only off slightly, because the Earth is not a perfect sphere, as they thought.
Later, the Romans were less interested in the theoretical and philosophical aspects of mathematics, but in its practical applications. They were great engineers, which is why so many of their constructions survive today, more than two thousand years later. They got the math right, even with their cumbersome numerals.
When Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages by religious nonsense, the great Arab scientists invented the zero, and carried on the mathematical knowledge of the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans. They knew the Earth was round and revolved around the Sun, while back in Europe the church was teaching a flat Earth and a geocentric universe. It took us far too long to bring science to the forefront and shake off those ridiculous ideas.
Today, we pride ourselves on our science and engineering, both of which require getting the right answer. There is no ‘right’ answer in mathematics, only the one right answer!
More insanity: Just heard on TV that Dr. Seuss books are being withdrawn by the publisher as racist. Man, that’s sick!
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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models. He is serving the 13th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia. To read Bob Shell’s, first essay on civil war, click here: https://tonywarderotica.com/bob-shell-letters-from-prison-3/
Editor’s Note: If you like Bob Shell’s blog posts, you’re sure to like his new book, COSMIC DANCE by Bob Shell (ISBN: 9781799224747, $ 12.95 book, $ 5.99 eBook) available now on Amazon.com . The book, his 26th, is a collection of essays written over the last twelve years in prison, none published anywhere before. It is subtitled, “A biologist’s reflections on space, time, reality, evolution, and the nature of consciousness,” which describes it pretty well. You can read a sample section and reviews on Amazon.com.
Some say the return to film is a reaction to a world where everything has become digital, fast and easy. It is certainly true that shooting film requires you to slow down and this makes it a very enjoyable experience. Perhaps the reason is even more simple than that. The main reason for the resurgence of film may simply be because it’s beautiful. That’s what got me hooked.
At New York Camera & Video we’re seeing our film lab get filled with orders on a daily basis. It’s all types of orders too. Color, black & white disposable cameras, even slide film. We also sell film cameras and many don’t last on the shelves for more than a day. There’s also an increasing level of connoisseurship for it. Many customers know which cameras and lenses are of quality ore even collectible. They can speak in great detail about the differences between film stocks. This has a lot to do passion film seems to bring out in people and the vast amount of knowledge now available on the internet. We’re seeing customers of all ages. In fact, our older customers are shocked when I tell them our largest demographic of film shooters is roughly between the ages of 18-30.
Our film connoisseurs are a joy to speak with. However, the most enjoyable aspect of my job is helping someone who wants to get into film for the first time. They usually start out with something simple like a point and shoot camera. Within a few months after they’ve had some decent results they’re back in the store asking about trading up for a fully manual 35mm camera. Many even take it a step further and get into larger format film cameras. It’s thrilling to see their knowledge expand and the quality of their images progress over time. It’s not long until they’re coming in and giving us tips and pointers.
This isn’t just a fad like when fashion from a past decade briefly makes a comeback. The apps on our phones like Instagram have been trying to emulate film for years. The look of film never stopped being beautiful. Kodak and most of the other film manufacturers are doing so well that they’re figured out ways to resurrect discontinued films back to market.
More are on the horizon in the next year or so. That’s not a venture a company would take on for a fad. Even our professional digital photographers are beginning to add film to their wedding and portraiture packages. They tell us their customers are beginning to request it. Nothing beats the soft look of skin tones shot on film. We now have to process color film every single day to keep up with volume and we’re constantly getting new regular customers. If you’re interested in dusting off your old film camera and getting back into it or perhaps trying it for the first time, stop by our store. We have everything to get you started. A knowledgeable staff, cameras, hard-to-find batteries, developing, printing, even home processing materials.
About The Author: Kenneth Taylor is a professional photographer and employee of New York Camera & Video. To visit his website, click here: https://www.expoterrestrial.com
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Editor’s Note: New York Camera & Video address: 1139 Street Road. Southampton, Pa. 18966. Phone: 215-357-6222
