Photo Story Documentaries

Beneath The Streets of Romania's Capital, A Living Hell

I stumbled across this article while searching the web for a photo story of the Romanian people. I decided to first watch the video of this to see and hear what it was about before actually reading it. I will warn you that it is kind of graphic, so beware.
I chose this because I wanted to see what else I can learn about Romania. Being born in the US and never having any Romanian history taught to me, this is how I learn about my family's country.
Having gone to Bucharest way too many times for me to even count, I never knew about these tunnels. I have never even thought about real people living in tunnels.
Personally, I think that this was a great topic for a documentary. It teaches people about what goes on under their city. Not many people think about what could possibly go on at night in the streets or below the surface.
These people were in orphanages when Ceausescu, once Romania's communist president, was in power. I think that to them, that was a much better life because they were in the care of the "state". Once communism fell apart in Romania, everything went downhill for them. Some were in concentration camps and some went to prison. The ones who got out came to the tunnels. The original intent for the tunnels was for it to be a heating system for Bucharest.

These people are sort of a family. They look out for each other, but also do drugs together. The main guy that they followed is the drug dealer who goes by the name of Bruce Lee. He explains that the "little" kid they met outside is practically his son. He looks out for him and doesn't let him do any drugs that involve needles. The kid, Nicu, who is actually 17 years old, is only allowed to do a metallic paint called Aurolac.
The text goes with the stories after they are pictured, sort of like what I just did.
It's amazing they got Bruce Lee to trust them enough to bring them into his "home". I wish there were more photos though and that they spent more time with these underground people.
They did however go back to these people 4 weeks later when one of the underground people, Catalina, died from her weakened immune system from AIDs and drugs. (Link here.)

Gypsy Life

For my second documentary, I came across a photo story of gypsies in Romania. (Link here.)

I thought this was fitting, because it kind of goes along with the documentary above. Most of the people in that documentary were also gypsies.

I've seen this type of community before many times. On your way to the country side, or going to the mountains, or the beach you will encounter this type of view pretty often. I think that in a way it has it's own beauty to it.
In this photo story it's not really about a certain family, but about the gypsies in general. Each photo has a caption of a few words and there isn't really an order to it. If you were to rearrange each photo it wouldn't change the story.
As I was looking through the photos I've noticed that it's not too much different than the regular poor white people in Romania. They wear about the same sort of outfits and look way more aged than someone living in the upper class.

 In the image above it basically shows what the living conditions are for some white folks I know in Romania. Always strange colored walls, with at least 1 rug hanging on the wall.

One thing to take note of in the image above is the fact that they have a horse (here it'd be ridiculously expensive to own) and a buggy, or cart (or whatever you call them here). I personally know many people in the countryside that own horses and buggies that aren't rich at all. It's one form of transportation.

I think this photo story was well done, however I wish it was more story like and more personal. It seems kind of impersonal to me right now. I also wish there was more captioning or an article or something to go along with the images. The images do go well alone though.

Final Project Proposal.

For my final project, I would really like to do more House Shows, because it is definitely a very interesting scene that many people are not too familiar with. There is at least one House Show going on almost every weekend until the end of the semester. They take place in various locations, and are lots of fun to go to because no one judges you.
While the lighting is difficult to work with, I think it's a great chance to try and improve on that.
Currently, I don't know what I will be focusing on, but I'm thinking about possibly focusing on the crowd from the band's point of view. I think that would be interesting to see because the crowd tends to do strange things.
I was thinking of it into making a multimedia project or prints. I have a few ideas so far. If I go the multimedia way, I was thinking of filming and photos to give a better idea of what goes on, and maybe possibly get people to say whatever they are thinking or feeling. It'd be relatively easy to get people to say things because they're all very open people and blurt out whatever anyway. If I go the prints way, I really liked the idea of having writing to go along with it. For this I was thinking to get people to write stuff down on paint samplers that you can get for free at Home Depot.

Photo Story: Thon-A-Thon House Show

Caladan

 Honduras

Butterfly man

Head bobbing

*serious faces & smile*

College house show

Sunflower Bean 

Beans
_________________________________________________________________________________

This weekend I attended 2 different house shows. The first house show I went to was on Friday night and only got to see the second band, because I got there late and neighbors threatened to call the cops. Not only did I not get too many photos of that night, but it also ended early because of the neighbors.

The second house show is shown above. It's the most interesting house show I've been to so far and also my favorite for a variety of reasons. 

Some very interesting things happened and I managed to get most of it on video. One of the things that happened was someone decided to smash his TV. It was kind of disappointing because it didn't go as I thought it would. 

The bands all did a good job and kept up good energy. Personally, I enjoyed Honduras' set best (it's more my style), but Sunflower Bean did a really awesome job too. If either of them come back, I'm more than willing to see them again.

The lighting was difficult for me to work with, because I have no experience with low lighting and lots of movement. I did the best I possibly could for something I've never done before.

Response: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans

Before I respond to the reading I would like to share a few things about the documentary we watched that went along with this book. The documentary was paralleled to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men to more recent times, and by recent I mean the 80's.
It made me realize that no matter where in the world you are, people share similarities. For example, the poor in this country share many of the same experiences as the poor from a country in Eastern Europe. (I say Eastern Europe, because I have been and experienced that sort of life in some ways, first hand.) The same goes for middle and upper classes.
In class we were asked why there was a photographer and a journalist working together on this. I responded with something along the lines of, "Two minds work better together and with four eyes, you can see more things together. You each have different perspectives on things too. It's interesting to share your experiences through different means, in this case, photography and writing."
Anyway, the first thing that intrigued me before even starting to read the passages assigned, was the way the book is laid out. The images went in the very front of the book and the text followed after the last image. This is how I tend to lay things out for my own blog, but I sometimes add captions to each image.
I found it extremely difficult to read it, because many times I was lost in a sea of words. The way it is written confused me. I, myself, don't think am a great writer, in fact, I think I need a lot of improvement, but the way he used punctuation made me need to reread everything at least 5 times before understanding what he was trying to say. There was also far too much detail which sometimes made me bored, so I'd skim over it instead.
To give you an idea of his writing:

Found on page 6.

Towards the end of the first chapter before he starts to talk about the people in the book, I question his sanity.

The way he described the people (physically) was mildly disturbing. It was mostly about how he saw the women, which personally bothered me. If you are going to describe people, describe men, women and everything in between, not just one gender. I didn't like how after all of that he says, "I am only human."
Something I didn't fully understand was why he was trying to tell their story through "their eyes" rather than his own point of view. While I understand that it would be more accurate in some sense, I kind of wish it was more so from his point of view.  Something I kept wondering about is when (what time of day/night) he would write about all of this.
Overall, I see his writing very journal like. He just writes without stopping to think about his writing style and where punctuation needs to be put in. He doesn't seem to care for starting a new sentence. There's an awful lot of run-on sentences. Thank God I am not an English major or I might have gone crazy.

Varnasi, India: "Beyond" Documentary

Today a photographer that I follow on Facebook, Joey Lawrence, posted this image. With the image, he posted a very lengthy caption about the time he and his friends Cale Glendening went to Varnasi, India for Cale's photography project relating to various religions around the world.
The man in the above picture is Lal Baba. According to Joey Lawrence, "when Lal Baba was young, his parents arranged a marriage for him. He ran away from home and decided to become a sadhu. Lal Baba's dreadlocks were several meters long, which have been growing for over 40 years. To sadhus, dreadlocks are a sign of renunciation and a life dedicated to spirituality." Lal Baba ended up dying of old age.
Along with the rest of the caption he posted on Facebook, he posted a link to the behind the scenes documentary. I'm only 14 minutes in but I'm already fascinated by it, and there is definitely some things to take note of when documenting people you've never met.

http://www.joeyl.com/2012/12/varanasi-india-behind-the-scenes-documentary

Photography: SCC project

I would prefer option #1: everyone has their own specialized tasks. It would be easiest because then we each only have to focus on our own individual task. If this goes, I would prefer to photograph events. My second choice would be to select and edit photos.

If option #2 gets selected, I would like to be a part of the stormwater project or local food systems.

Cash Cash//February 13, 2015

Before & After

For my first before and after, I had my friend, Katherine, do her make-up. She started off like a normal person doing their makeup but ended up raccoon eyed, because, well... that's just Katherine being Katherine.
What I have always found amusing was the way girls always make really weird faces when applying make-up.

For the second one, originally she was going to paint or draw something. Katherine remembered she had bought a receipt roll from one of the stores downtown and decided to attempt to turn herself into a mummy. She used up almost all of the receipt paper to do just that. After almost completely covering herself in it, it was time to take it all off.
It was very amusing to photograph, however, it would've been more interesting in a different setting and natural lighting. It is definitely something I could turn into a full photography project, while she turns herself into her own art and use in her new Facebook art page.

Curious about her art? Go "like" her page here!