Surveillance Project

What I do within 10 ft. of my phone over 24 hours on 9/21/13:

• Wake up
• Drive to grocery to buy breakfast
• Stop at bank
• Eat breakfast
• Watch the morning nature shows
• Do reading for class
• Watch the West Wing
• Clean room
• Go to grocery for Mom for dinner
• Watch the West Wing
• Go to sleep.

I noticed that (even though I didn't note it in my list of things that I do over 24 hours) I have a tendency to use the same glass all the time. It's a "Jelly Jar" glass, which just means that it used to be used for Welch's jelly, and I won it at the NYS Fair this year. I love the glass because it has Bugs Bunny on it and it just kind of makes me happy every time I pick it up. So on 9/22/13 I took a picture of every time I used that glass throughout the day. I tend to use it a lot =)

Diptych Project

Response to Snowden and Peeping Tom Articles

           The Snowden article was very interesting. The fact that this whole journey has been documented, and that these people are willing to alter their lives in such a dramatic way to get this information out there, and what the consequences of releasing this information are makes a huge statement in and of its self. It means that they think that this is that important. Censorship in a lot of ways. is a seriously corrupt part of government. I believe that censorship is important to a certain extent, because if people see documents out of context, or if military documents are released that could foil a plan for a necessary operation we could be putting the country at risk. However, the government should not be withholding information from us that we should know about. And I think that if they are withholding important information that we should be aware of, that information should be leaked. I know that the information that Snowden released is about NSA surveillance, but we don't know exactly what the information is. In any case I say bravo Snowden. If you feel that strongly that we should be aware of this information, and that it should be presented to us in a proper manner, and not shown to us out of context, then it must be pretty damn important and for a damn good reason.
           The Peeping Tom presents a very serious issue for any and all photographers. This photographer took pictures of a family through their apartment window without them knowing, and then put the pieces on display, and sold them for $10,000 a piece. Generally when you take a picture of someone in their home through their window, it's considered an invasion of privacy and it is illegal. However the court through this case out because this family was living in a glass walled apartment without any curtains. The court ruled that if they were living in a glass house then they forfeit their expectancy of privacy. I think that that might be true to some extent. However, though I have never lived in a glass apartment myself, I would think that if the apartment across the way was designed similarly that there would be an unwritten code of respect that you don't go taking pictures of the people across the way. But if you break that code, all you can really get are angry neighbors, the court still cant do anything. If I had been one of the people in those pictures I would probably not have cared about his taking the pictures, but the fact that he made money on them would have annoyed me. And I would have sued for 15% of his profit.

The Medium is the Massage Response

               When I started reading this book, it felt very out of context because I started on page 60. It was interesting, but it felt very fragmented. A section that really interested me was the one about commercials, and how movies have come to be more like commercials to manipulate the psyche to feel one way or another. But as the book states if you have not been preconditioned to a lot of the techniques used in commercials you would not be affected by it, and you might even find it annoying.
                I found a couple of bits in this section interesting. First the part about the commercials states that television commercials were considered a "bastard form." I found that bit interesting because it might have been considered a bastard form then, but nowadays it is a pretty good business to be working in if you are a filmmaker. It's a good place to be, because you can make a lot of money making commercials. Though commercials are still annoying, they keep allow a lot of filmmakers to make a good living.
               The other bit that I found interesting was the New York Times front page title "Power Failure Snarls Northeast." Just this title shows how reliant almost all of America is on electricity (with the exception of the Amish.) Maybe the Amish have the right idea: to not become too reliant on electric utilities because if they ever stopped working most of society probably would not know how to function. This article states that 800,000 people are caught in subways, cars have stopped, and the city is dark. Electronics are such an important part to our everyday lives, and especially to people who work in film and photography. Even if we are using say a Bolex camera, chances are, if we are indoors, we are lighting the scene with electric lights. Most everything we do in our work, and in most other jobs rely on electricity.