Reaction Essay
It's truly remarkable that photographs catch and express human emotions. Viewers get excited, sad, touched, and melancholy as they see photographs of various subjects. Here are two pieces of photo, which spark different emotions on the same subject. One is called "Village School," by Margaret Bourke-White. The other is called "Children's Puppet Theartre, Paris 1963" by Alfred Eisenstadt. Both pictures have the same subjects, which are children, but they are delivering very different emotions to the viewers.
In "Village School," the feelings that it causes in the viewers are being controlled, suppressed, and disciplined. Children are juxtaposed in a reverse triangle, and this composition makes viewers focus on the boy in the very front row due to the law of perspective. As the main center of interest, he creates an overall sentiment of the photograph. The boy is looking at someone, who might be an authority figure, in front of him. His eyes show that he's willing to be submissive to whoever that is in front of him. There's obvious contrast between children's clothes and their faces, which makes their faces more stand out. It also helps to create the entire mood of the picture since children's serious looking faces successfully grab viewers attention.
Contrarily, in "Children's Puppet Theatre," the children give out completely different energy. The children are scattered all over the entire photograph, and this composition makes viewers diversify their attention. They are engrossed themselves into something going on in front of them, and they look very amused and excited. The boy on the far left is covering he's ears as if he hears a loud explosion. And the girl right next to him is also covering her mouth. The boy and girl in the middle seem very excited with their mouths open. In terms of colors and tones, the contrast isn't very conspicuous because mostly it's very light except for the boy's outfit in the middle. Furthermore, The fact that so much light is used in this picture adds brisk energy on to the lively atmosphere that the children produce.
Although the two photographs are depicting children, the children in each picture carry very different feelings. The Children in "Village School" look very solemn and reverent. It might produce a feeling of oddity in viewers since children at their age are supposed to be disorganized and fidgety. On the other hand, the children in "Children's Puppet Theatre" create lively and exciting mood in viewers. The formers look oppressed and the latters look free to shout out how they feel. Two pictures have one thing in common, which is viewpoint. The subjects all are looking at something in front of them.
The two photographs convey different emotions to viewers. In one the viewers feel oppressed by the stance of the boys. The other makes viewers feel cheerful and lively. The juxtapositions differ between the two pictures. However, regardless of the mood that the pictures create, it's the strong uniqueness of each photograph that makes both memorable and valuable.
From Hyein Jin 200903450 To Seungmi Park
ReplyDelete1. What I like about this piece of writing is your vocabulary. You used a wide range of words. I see your good command of English through this writing!
2. Your main point seems that there are different emotions and stories conveyed by the two pictures, but they are both impressive.
3. These particular words or lines struck me as powerful:
The boy is looking at someone, who might be an authority figure, in front of him. His eyes show that he's willing to be submissive to whoever that is in front of him.
I love your guessing here, and this enriches the whole quality and density of your writing.
4. Some things aren't clear to me.
Everything is clear, but I would like to suggest adding more details. in 3rd and 4th paragraph. Some parts are a little bit monotonous because of lack of illustration.
5. The one change you could make that would make the biggest improvement in this piece of writing is that it would be better if you explained more about elements(ex periphery) to compare.