Maeve's Blog

I think that the topic of my photo essay will be “The Life of a LimeBike” and try to tell this narrative from its perspective.

After reading Kolowich’s article, I had my phone in the most capable state that it could be in to capture some “professional” shots. I tried to vary my angles and not to always take the most obvious picture. I made sure that the LimeBikes were the focus of the photo so that the surroundings did not take from the main idea of the picture.

For creating the captions, I took the advice from Smock and
Krueger’ s articles. I noted accurately the day and place that each photo was taken. In addition, I kept my captions brief, conversational and in the present tense.

We have all heard of the saying that a picture can tell a thousand words. While this sounds very cliche, it also is true. I think that the main affordance of photography is its ability to present images that words could not even begin to describe. It can capture subtle nuances that language cannot convey or overlooks. According to Campbell’s article, narratives must be constructed and that they are not “found” without any effort. In addition, photography has the ability to capture life in its most natural state. Often a single image has the power to completely overwhelm us with emotion whereas a piece of writing would not be able to achieve the same goals in as such a concise format.

When it comes to photography there will always be an ethical and unethical dimension to it. In the age of smartphones and people recording everything that they see, ethics and privacy have come to the fore in recent years. With regards to The New York Times article, the main issue seems to stem from the staging of photographs. Throughout the piece different photojournalists put forward their view on what constitutes good ethics. Consistently honesty and integrity have been brought up. Most journalists understand that it is acceptable for certain photographs to be staged if it is reasonable for the genre of the piece such as still life or portraiture. However, when it comes to news stories, there seems to be a significant portion of the journalists that stage a photo by either asking someone to repeat what they just did or recreating moments that their camera missed. The issue with this practice when it comes to the news is that it misleads people into believing that this actually occurred. It creates a distrust among the public towards the media as they feel that they are being deceived by images that were set up and did not truly happen.

The photo essays that I chose were Bielefeld’s “Weeknight Dinners” and Ross’ “Life inside a Juvenile Detention Center for Girls”. With reference to Jenab’s views on ethical storytelling, I think that she would approve of the Bielefeld’s essay and not so much of Ross’. Ross’ photo essay is a very similar concept to that of the Humans of New York stories. While Ross’ essay evoked more of an emotional response from me, I do not think that he captured the full story of the girls that had been incarcerated. To quote Adiche, he told “a single story” of those girls. He did not tell the stories of girls that were in the detention facility for the safety of society. Instead, he focused on how they were either pregnant before their incarceration or had suffered some kind of abuse in their youth. This essay tells the stories that come to the forefront of my mind when the topic of juvenile detention centers arises. While he accounts multiple stories, each of the stories has a similar theme. He seems to be implying that society has failed these young girls and that we should feel pity for them. Ross also implies that their actions were not their fault but due to external influences like a difficult childhood. He fails to recognize the serious implications of the girls’ actions for the community as a whole. I think that Ross’ photo essay definitely reflects Jenab’s ethical concerns as she would be unsure about the positive consequences that sharing these stories would have for the girls.

However, I found the “Weeknight Dinners” essay very interesting because it was simply a snapshot in time of a diverse set of people at a similar time in their day. I think that Bielefeld does offer a new angle about human relationships. In her collection, she features a wide variety of people including elderly couples, young people, individuals and different shapes and sizes of families. She manages to capture the relationship between the individuals based on the food, where they are having dinner, where their focus lies and their body language towards each other. Her photos do not appear staged which gives authenticity and integrity to the essay. In addition, Bielefeld does not judge each unique dynamic but allows us to interpret and draw our own conclusions about the relationships. In this way, I think that it reflects Adiche’s call for multiple stories. She does not present a single definition of family and human relationships. They are original for each individual and I think that she celebrates this fact. I do not believe that Jenab would have any ethical issues with this essay as there does not appear to be an underlying motive to evoke a certain reaction form its audience apart from reflection. Reflection is an important part of our lives and it is crucial to reflect as it hinders us from having a single story about a certain topic or particular group of people.

The key ideas expressed in the comic are how we process different facts based on our past experiences and our personal opinions about the facts in question. The Oatmeal Comic discusses the neuroscientific theory known as the “Backfire Effect”. As humans we are wired to strive for consistency and new information that challenges our beliefs is as intimidating as a physical threat. This is especially true if one of our core beliefs is being challenged. They are the beliefs that make us who we are and have been built on by experience. It explains why we will do anything to refute claims that are heavily supported with overwhelming evidence. The new fact is not only going against what we believe but it also feels like a personal attack on what we stand for. The creator assumes that the audience has some prior knowledge about historical events and that the facts that are presented are different to what you previously considered to be the truth.  

It is very interesting to read the comic in light of the reading from UWP and Crowley and Hawhee’s chapter. The comic captures ethical rhetoric because it bases all of its argument off of solid facts and the creator provides sources to further strengthen his point. With reference to Crowley and Hawhee’s chapter, it was interesting to see the psychological reasons as to why facts alone do not always possess the power to persuade us. While the comic did persuade me based on facts alone, I do not believe that this would be the case of some of the alternative facts were in contradiction with my core beliefs. The UWP piece broke down the aspects that are involved in rhetorical argument and I think that the comic was aware of the Ethical, Rhetorical and the Practical when composing the piece. I think that the creator especially made great use of knowledge by locating sources and presenting facts that he found out ot be true. In addition, the creator demonstrates intellectual courage by sharing facts that he is aware are unpopular.

I found it interesting that I did not realize that the comic was trying to convince me of a new way of thinking about certain pieces of information that I had assumed to be factual. I also enjoyed being able to self-analyze my behavior and reactions to different facts that were being presented. The trivial facts were more interesting and I felt good to have learned some new information. However, the controversial statements were more difficult to accept. I found myself reading the sources that were provided for these statements to judge their authenticity whereas I did not question the new information that I received about the other beliefs.

My strengths as a writer are that I am open to writing about many different topics and I can make a plan and stick to it. I would like to improve the way that I write so that it reads better and has less syntactical errors. I find it easier to write serious pieces as this is representative of the types of books that I read. I am also quite a serious person so it more natural for me to write in a serious tone. I find it challenging to write about things that I am not passionate about and comical pieces are more difficult for me to write. I hope to improve on the skills that I already possess and also learn new skills that will help me throughout my years in college and the workplace.

When I was younger I loved to read. I  enjoy romantic and adventure novels but I have not been reading as much as I would like to in the last few years. Reading got pushed aside as my school workload became heavier and I did not have a lot of time to read texts that were not required for class. In addition, the increasing presence of technology and social media in my life has taken over the time that used to be set aside for reading. In reference to writing, it was never something that I particularly enjoyed mainly because it is not a strength of mine. I have often tried to improve my writing but with very little prevail. I have never been told that I am poor at writing but I would rarely receive high marks for assignments in my English classes. I think that this contributed to my attitude towards writing. I am a perfectionist and not getting high marks in writing assignments even though I put in effort was very difficult for me to deal with.

I’m from Ireland so all of our compositions were handwritten print media as all assignments were very exam-focused. I have never worked with other types of media but I am looking forward to the experience of using them throughout this course!

I think that this image represents the way that I feel about writing and rhetoric. I am slightly lost right now but I have hope that it will become much clearer through the lens of this course and your guidance. On top of that, the clarity will allow me to appreciate the beauty of language in all of its forms just like the trees in the forest in the image.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton