Weekly Blog Post 7

Although I don’t have an extensive experience in the field of photography, it interests me in its uses. Photos can evoke emotions that writing and paintings can’t. If a person sees a photo of a childhood farm, a heightened sense of nostalgia could come upon them that wouldn’t have occurred had it been a passage from a journal. The impact of photography is intriguing to me and I wish to delve into it further.

The little experience I have with photography deals with amateur shots of naturalistic environments. During our family vacations to Colorado, I would always bring the camera along during our hikes to capture nature’s beauty. Tinkering with the focus, lighting and shot angles all helped me better understand my camera and its abilities. Almost all my camera work has been with digital machines, so I lack a great deal of knowledge about the older generations of cameras.

Last semester for my Creativity 101 class we were assigned to photograph a variety of items within a specified area. My area was in front of Love Library where, to my astonishment, there was an extensive arrangement of flora and fauna. I genuinely enjoyed the task of photographing not only the natural world, but also the man-made structures in the surrounding area. Being creative in my selection of objects and angles made my photos unique. Throughout this process I learned a cornucopia of terms relating to this field of study such as: lens, cropping, shading, and orientation. With this knowledge I’ll have a slight grasp on the terminology for this upcoming project.

I already have a mild interest in photography and with my future occupation being in the biological sciences, I’m sure to be taking a multitude of photos in my future. This project will be a learning experience for me and will help expand my set of artistic skills. I’m very optimistic about this project and am ready for the challenge of analyzing the rhetoric and argument in these texts.

Weekly Blog Post 6

Logos can appear in a multitude of guises by using a variety of strategies. Some these include the number of elements, visual hierarchy, contrast, and visual unity. “Drive Slow” incorporates these methods to further an argument it presents to the audience.

In order to have contrast, one must have sameness. Throughout this video, there are two contrasting points of view. The camera either shows a close up of the rapper with minimal objects in the background or the shining lights of a thriving city. The video has three to five seconds of one perspective and then switches to the other and so on. Contrasting views are a significant way to get a point across because they force the audience to juxtapose them. Having the first half of the video with just close-ups and the latter half with city shots would not have a lasting impact on the audience.

Repetition is present in this video and it contributes to the visual unity. The city shots all have bright lights, but the buildings are used for different purposes and the hues differ. Most lie in the realm of red, orange, and yellow; however, there are some accents of blue and green. Casinos, clubs, movie theaters, strip malls, and restaurants are all present while Kanye and his pals cruise around town. Diversity of buildings helps to create a sense of unity as they are all integral parts of a city. Also, a few shots show brilliant fireworks in the dark city sky. One such scene depicts the firework beginning as blue, then transforms into purple, and finally red. Congruency with this scene and the previous scene helps the video to flow together. During the individual shots, the same hue scheme is used in the background with the rapper’s attire complementing it. Even though the two types of scenes contrast, the continuation of the same hues helps to unify the video as a whole.

The use of logos in this video is meant to show the juxtaposition of each rapper’s humble beginnings and the flashy, complex world that surrounded them yet seemed out of reach. Ethos is based off of these contrasting images by presenting two sides of each rapper. This in turn affects pathos and the emotions viewers obtain. If the video has done its job, the viewer will feel divided between living a simple life with friends or going for the fame and glory. Even though these two ideas seem polar opposites, they are connected. This is evidenced by each rapper’s rise to fame from the slumps.