Shed

I found the top photo on iheartphotography.com and it instantly reminded me of a photo I took on the first day of class.  My picture is of the shed next to the turf field.  There is nothing really special about the shed but i like the picture because of the tree next to the shed and the random recycling and trash can in front.  In the other photo there is a chair and trees. 

Rule of Thirds

I took this photo on the left over the weekend when I was in Atlantic City.  It's a view from my hotel window overlooking the bay.  I tried to capture three layers (sky, water, land) with the "rule of thirds."  I found the photo on the right from tutorialspalace.com, and it shows a great example of the rule of thirds.     

Time Stands Still...And it is rather tall.

The photo on the left is my own, whereas I found the photo on the right, which was taken by Christopher Cassidy(and can be found here http://anke.blogs.com/anke/2008/12/painting-trinity-.html, afterwards.

While both photos do include clocks of some sort (a timer, in the case of my photo, and a clock tower, in Cassidy's photo), the main similarity that stood out to me was the position of the main subject of both of these photos. That is, both the timer and the clock tower, due to the position of the camera in relation to the respective things, invokes an sense of imposition. Both the timer and clock tower seemingly tower (ha) over the viewer. The difference can then be found in the reality of this imposing. That is, the timer, which is just under a foot in height, is not very imposing at all, but from that perspective, it gains that sense of imposition. In contrast, the clock tower, by nature of its height, could still seem rather imposing to a viewer from the ground. Now, that being said, one could certainly conceive of a photograph in which the clock tower would not seem as imposing (for example, if one were to a take a photo from farther away that is parallel with the photographer's normal gaze).

Regardless, both of these photos further show that the vantage point can have a dramatic effect on the viewer's relation to the photograph and what it depicts.

Still Life

The image on the top was taken by me at Hillel.  Although it takes the appearance of a still life, it still has many imperfections, such as the tag on the tomatoes, the partially used garlic, and the crumpled note behind the bowl of oranges. 

The image that I found that is visually similar is the bottom image, which came from FoodFolio/Alamy. 

 The iamge from FoodFolio/Alamy has a much more "perfect" appearance.  All of the fruit is in perfect condition without any bruises or blemishes, which constrasts with my image.  In addition, the lighting in both pictures is similiar, as the reflection of the lights above the fruit provide a shiny, white patch of light on them.  The yellow background also helps to bring outthe colors in the fruit, and adds color to the picture. 

Childhood

I made this photograph on Monday. The hopscotch board implies the near presence of children, but the sidewalk is rapidly deteriorating. It isn't exactly the safest place for a child, playing right on the side of the road. And it's not clean. It also shows the crumbling of a past urban life. But the sidewalk is often the only place for children to play in poorer urban neighborhoods.

I found this photograph by Stephanie Leibowitz to contrast with the photo above. While it may have been customary for children to play in dirty streets in the past, today playgrounds and parks are encouraged. Pristine, safe, this is probably the preferred play area. But these places are created in areas with money, and the places that are crumbling still leave children playing on sidewalks instead of swinging on monkey bars.

The picture on the left is from terragalleria.com, and was taken by QT Luong in 2006 entitled Paddington Rail station. London, England, United Kingdom. The picture I took on the right is of the Jenkintown train station, and was taken as a response to the picture by Luong. Compositionally, they both share similarities. I was trying to capture the low exposure, and singularity of the people at the train station, in my picture.

snow

The photo on the bottom i found on a blog called pucksauce.com.  It reminded me of a photo that i took when it was snowing out a couple weeks ago.  In the photo I took you can see the snow coming down because of the bright light.  I thought that it was cool to capture the snow actually falling and being able to see it in a photo. 

Vespas

The top photograph I found on flickr and its content immediately reminded me of a photograph I had taken while in Italy. Vespas are everywhere there and I had taken a picture of a parked line of them. Even though these two photographs capture the same subject they are still very different in the fact that the one from flickr shows a lone vespa by itself and the one I took shows about 15. As a viewer I got very different messages from both.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/5210439082/sizes/l/in/photostream/)