Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Women Photojournalists

 

Photo by Peter Silverton 



Annie Leibovitz was born in Connecticut in October of 1949. Annie was born into a military family who moved across the country often. At the age of 21, Annie was offered a job as the staff photographer at the Rolling Stones. Two years later, she was promoted to chief photographer there. This was the first time in history that a female was the chief photographer at this magazine.  During this time Annie traveled with the Rolling Stones band internationally where she developed a drug addiction. After 10 years of working up the chains at the Rolling Stones, Annie transferred to Vanity Fair. Many of Annie's most-known pictures are portraits and exposing pictures of celebrities using bright and vivid colors. Annie went through many trials throughout her life both personally and in her career. After going on tour with the Rolling Stones she went through 5 years of addiction to cocaine and rehab before she finally kicked the addiction and well as living through the deaths of both her parents and her life partner. In her personal life in 2009, she was sued for 24 million dollars to pay back a loan she had borrowed from a firm. In her career, Annie has accomplished photographing award-winning portraits of famous people such as the Queen. Annie's black and white portraits are similar to Dee Dwyder's self-portrait in the Authority Collective. While both photographs have different messages overall both somewhat relate to self-expression and self-love. One is a picture Dwyder took of themselves to promote self-love and the picture that Annie takes to show others self-love. 


Photo by Annie Leibovitz







Photo by Annie Leibovitz



Despite working in a male-dominated field, Annie used her gender in a positive way. Annie was able to get the people she was photographing to open up and "reveal" a part of themselves. Annie states, "Oftentimes when you have a male photographer and a female sitter, there is a kind of imbalance of power to start with. What I see in these photos is a leveling of the playing field." Different professions where this ideology could also be true would be like doctors or lawyers. Despite both being male-dominated fields and fields that were once believed that women could not do, women doing these jobs could have different perspectives. Their different perspectives could help many women who feel uneasy reaching out to the opposite gender and could give new insights into career-focused issues. It was not until 1972, that it was legal for all women to attend schooling and not be stopped from certain careers based on gender



That still does not mean it was without hardship for women stepping into a male-dominated field. This is similar to the discrimination that Yunghi Kim dealt with. The sarcastic comments made to her regard her skills and the belief that she only received the job and accomplishments because of her gender and race rather than the hard work and dedication she put into her career. And even when women are given the respect they deserve due to their work ethic, they have to deal with much bigger consequences in their personal lives. We see this in Lindsay Addario's career. The photojournalist was kidnapped and while her 3 male counterparts who were also abducted only suffered beating, Addario was sexually assaulted. Despite going through this traumatic event, people still told her that women should not cover war 



Photo by Massican






 






Thursday, October 17, 2024

Do Photographs Carry Emotions

 

Bethany – The 9 Emotions

Photographs hold and can release emotions and specific feelings to those who look at them. While most of the time the emotions and feelings will be similar across the board of people, sometimes there may be clear distinctions in how people feel about the pictures. The feelings the photographer was trying to convey may become twisted and come out completely opposite. For most, a picture of a young baby or puppy may incite feelings of happiness and joy, whereas for someone who dislikes young children or dogs, the picture would reveal completely opposite emotions. 



For this project, I wanted to take multiple pictures of many different items and scenes and interview people. I will ask my participants their ages and gender ,and then briefly question them. I will show them an image and ask them to describe the scene or item they are looking. This is where they would give me a possible hypothetical of what is happening in the picture. From there I will ask them to tell me the feelings they have while looking at the picture. I will write down in this blog exactly what the answers are that I am given. 


Participants:

A - female, age 10 

B - female, age 19

C - male, age 19

D - male, age 20



Picture 1

Photo by Natalie Carsten

What is shown in this picture?

A - "Eating ice cream, grass, friends" 

B - "Two young girls sitting on a picnic table eating ice cream"

C - "A girl with red hair, a girl with blonde hair, a picnic table, they are eating ice cream, a kid riding a bike and a family eating in the background" 

D - "Kid on the left eating ice cream, a black blob in the back" 


How does this make you feel? 

A - "Hungry"

B - "The picture makes me feel sentimental about my friendships growing up and think about happy memories"  

C - "Happy, makes me want ice cream"

D - "Nothing kinda chill"


Picture 2 

Photo by Alex Burke 

What is shown in this picture? 


A- "A mountain and a sunset"

B - "The picture is of a mountain with a sunset in the background, the river in the front shows a reflection of the view"

C - "Pink skies and a mountain and waterfall, and two people climbing to the top and holding their hands in the air in celebration" 

D - "Sunset or sunrise"


How does this make you feel? 

A - "It's cool" 

B - "Looking at the picture, I am fascinated by the world and nature, it makes me feel happy" 

C - "Drippy" 

D - "Awesome sick picture" 



Picture 3 

Photo by Steve Tuttle 
What is shown in this picture? 


A - "A baby"

B - " I see a baby sitting in the grass, holding a leaf" 

C - "A minor, some toes"

D - "Kid holding leaf"



How does this make you feel? 

A - "Happy because it's a baby"

B - "Happy and joyful, I like babies" 

C - "Weird, why are we looking at babies" 

D - "Nothing normal picture" 


Picture 4

Photo by Joshua Roberts 
What is shown in this picture?

A - "Election, a crowd of people"


B - " I see a march or protest in Washington, DC"

C - "January 6"

D - "Captial bulding in DC"


How does this make you feel? 

A - "Pretty bored"

B -  "I feel neutral about this picture since I am unsure what they are protesting" 

C - "Patriotic" 

D - "Patriotic"


Picture 5 

Photo by Veran Hill 

What is shown in this picture?

A - "Veteran's Day, serving the country, saluting" 

B - "I see members of our military forces saluting the American flag" 

C - "My friend, Jubril" 


- "American flag" 

How does this make you feel? 

A - "Proud"

B - "I feel proud to be an American and of all of the men and women who have put their lives on the line for our country when I look at this picture" 

C - "Makes me want to go into the army and fight for my rights" 

D - "Patriotic again" 



Reflection

Photos affect each person differently. Each person comes from a completely different walk of life, age, and interests. Someone who does not like dogs won't say that they feel happy when they see a picture of a puppy. One of the people I interviewed was my little sister. I joke that she gave very "10-year-old answers." She gave very basic answers to my questioning her, and when asked what emotions she felt when looking at the pictures, she was stumped on what to say. This is different than the answers of a 19-year-old, who has more life experience, and the answers would be even more different than a 60-year-old. Peter Grof writes, "The variety of humankind can just as well bring about all the emotions you can think of. Compassion, fear, love, hate, sadness, happiness."