Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Picture That Makes You Really Think

On American Studies Day, i went to see Mr. Maury talk about his photography. Mr. Maury talked about how he has traveled around the world to take pictures because that is what he loves to do and he wanted to get some good pictures. He showed some pictures of September 11th and how when he got the call that there was an attack, he drove all the way up to New York so that he could take the pictures. Some of the pictures that he showed us, were similar to other pictures that i have seen in magazines and articles. But when he started going into the pictures that he took in Africa, it really made me look at the screen and think. He took pictures of the starving children in Africa and the little boys with the big bellies. We saw this one picture of a four year old in Africa who had the face of a 75 year old man and his ribs were poking out. This really made me sad and realize how fortunate we are to live in the North Shore. We are really sheltered here in the North Shore and we don't see or experience many things that are going on in the world right now like the hunger and lack of clean water in Africa. Then when he started to show us pictures from South Africa, my eyes began to tear up and my stomach dropped. Although i wasn't there to see what was going on in the pictures, the pictures told their own sad stories. My friend is from South Africa and he said that he has seen the little boys with the big bellies who are starving and bloated with water. I don't know what i would do if i saw them every day on the streets starving. We live in such a sheltered and nice community where we are fortunate for many things. 
The one picture that probably stuck in my mind was the picture of the black people in South Africa burning a black immigrant on the ground. This immigrant was on the ground on his hands and knees in flames. This made my stomach sink and made me feel sick to my stomach. It was just a horrible picture to look at and it was amazing to think that people would actually do that to other people. Although it was a picture that i did not want to see, it showed me that things are happening around the world and we should be aware of them.

Did anyone else see this presentation?
What picture stood out most to you and why did it stand out the most?

Sunday, May 10, 2009

D.A.R.E FLAG
Drug Abuse Resistance Education

My camera seems to not be loading my pictures onto my computer? So i have to picture to put up right now, but as soon as i get it working, i will load my pic up here. 
We have been talking about the American Flag in class for the past few days and how it can be posted on many different things. My picture is one of a shirt that i received in 4th grade from the D.A.R.E program, which is the program for anti-drugs. They gave us shirts that had a big American flag on the front of it and the letters D.A.R.E below it. I thought that this was an original idea to show the American flag because i received it from an anti-drug program. I was looking around my house for things that i could take pictures and i actually saw the American Flag in more places then i would have expected. It was kind of cool to look around and notice how many flags we have on objects or even the flag itself. I never really have noticed them before, but now that i am looking, there are a lot in our house. 
The American Flag can be anywhere and everywhere. I don't think that a lot of people notice them all too often because they are used to just seeing them everywhere so they don't really notice them when they see it in their house. (That was the case for me) 

Have you seen a lot more flags around now that you have you mind on them?