critique j-20 inaugural march triptych

brian

I had a very difficult time trying to get any three of the images I took on j-20 to fit together. Nontheless, I rejected the idea of showing three images one below the other, as Andy did in his sample. This allows the pictures to be bigger -- which I needed so that you could see the faces in the central image and still fit the whole thing into the challenge thread. However, I felt that this vertical arrangement took away too much of the challenge of making three pictures work together visually as well as thematically. So I fell back on this technique that I used, perhaps more effectively, in a series of images from NYC. For example:

http://rivertext.smugmug.com/gallery/259303/1/10203378

Anyway, anyone care to offer some constructive criticism on what I could have done differently when I arranged or took these photographs that might have gotten me into the semi-finals.

mercphoto

Aside from my political views, which lean right and are not in protest of the election, here's my critiques of the collage. The first two photos show an obvious protest. Only the second has any context about what the protest is for (perhaps it should say "48% of the people don't agree with the Bush agenda, but hey, I said I wouldn't interject my political views... or math for that matter...). The third shot is really cool, but you don't really know what it is. I really like the tilter horizon and the slight motion blur in that shot as well.

brian

>>here's my critiques of the collage. The first two photos show an obvious protest.

Yeah, I was worried about that. I don't want to pretend that I had all these alternate terrific designs and I chose that one just to express my concerns about the lack of an impact of the protest. I had images with a much stronger political impact -- but they didn't harmonizse as well. However, I was when I chose that image trying to show the protest disappearing down a street after showing

1.) the faces and feelings of the participants

2.) an image with the message that also set the location.

I'm not sure that my design works as I wished.

> (perhaps it should say "48% of the people don't agree with the Bush agenda, but hey, I said I wouldn't interject my political views... or math for that matter...).

Well, as long as we have gotten into the math.

Your statement assumes that the reputed vote count accurately reflects:

1.) the per centage of people that support key Bush agenda items like privatizing Social Security and the war in Iraq. Every poll indicates that it does not.

2.) it also assumes that the voting was fair and accurate. (best not get into that one here.)

mercphoto

brian wrote:

Well, as long as we have gotten into the math.

Your statement assumes that the reputed vote count accurately reflects:

1.) the per centage of people that support key Bush agenda items like privatizing Social Security and the war in Iraq. Every poll indicates that it does not.

2.) it also assumes that the voting was fair and accurate. (best not get into that one here.)

Agreed, best not to get into that. This is politics. All sides cheat. Don't pretend that one side does and the other is simply an innocent victim.

brian

mercphoto wrote:

Agreed, best not to get into that. This is politics. All sides cheat. Don't pretend that one side does and the other is simply an innocent victim.

Mercphoto, We're probably not going to come to an agreement on this. But I hope at least that you will come to understand that you have just touched on the most important issue in America today. "Is the Bush adminstration just engaging in politics as usual -- or is this really a radical revolution, and, if so, what does that mean?" In every era there are things that can be said that it is immoral not to respond to -- no matter what the cost. And, in the past, the cost for turning the other way and wrongly considering it politics as usual has been almost beyond reckoning.

Let me just quote briefly from Buzzflash a discussion of the most famous response to the position you outlined. That response was made by Princeton Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in his introduction to "The Great Unraveling." Here in this brief excerpt Krugman himself summs up his thoughts. (The link to the entire interview is at the end.)

---

BuzzFlash: In the preface to the hardcover edition of The Great Unraveling: Losing our Way in the New Century, you make ironic use of Henry Kissinger’s Ph.D. thesis at Harvard as a way to understand the radicalism of the Bush Administration. Could you explain that a bit more?

Paul Krugman: Well, it’s really good for explaining how reasonable people can’t bring themselves to see that they’re actually facing a threat from a radical movement. Kissinger talked about the time of the French Revolution, and pretty obviously he also was thinking about the 1930s. He argued that, when you have a revolutionary power, somebody who really wants to tear apart the system -- doesn’t believe in any of the rules -- reasonable people who’ve been accustomed to stability just say, "Oh, you know, they may say that, but they don’t really mean it." And, "This is just tactical, and let’s not get too excited." Anyone who claims that these guys really are as radical as their own statements suggest is, you know, "shrill." Kissinger suggests they'd be considered alarmists. And those who say, “Don’t worry. It’s not a big deal,”are considered sane and reasonable.


Well, that’s exactly what’s been happening. For four years now, some of us have been saying, whether or not you think they’re bad guys, they’re certainly radical. They don’t play by the rules. You can’t take anything that you’ve regarded as normal from previous U.S. political experience as applying to Bush and the people around him. They will say things and do things that would not previously have made any sense -- you know, would have been previously considered out of bounds. And for all of that period, the critics have been told: "Oh, you know, you’re overreacting, and there’s something wrong with you."

We just saw it with the increased level of terror alerts. Among those of us who had made a judgment about what kind of people we’re dealing with, the reaction was, this timing was awfully convenient. After all, they’ve done this sort of thing before. Of course, this was criticized as completely unreasonable to say -- after all, this time we’ve got "specifics." But here we are with this morning’s headlines: Oh, it’s all three-year-old information.

BuzzFlash: Headlines in mostly The Washington Post and The New York Times revealed the information predated 9/11.

Paul Krugman: Right.


http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/08/int04041.html

wxwax

Hey folks, love your passion, but....

This is a photography forum, not a political one. Let's leave the political discussions for Wide Angle forum. Cheers.

pathfinder

wxwax wrote:

Hey folks, love your passion, but....

This is a photography forum, not a political one. Let's leave the political discussions for Wide Angle forum. Cheers.

I'm with you waxed one. Politics belong in Wide Angle or Jo Mama at advrider.com They'll get a nice warm welcome there for sure.