Critiquing Professional Examples

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/mlk/index.html

1. This photo essay about Martin Luther King Jr. is good because the the organization is structured and easy to understand. The photos are on separate pages, the links to the pages are easy to find, and when the image is portrait or landscape the caption is shifted to accommodate it so the page doesn't stretch. I like all these things.

2. All of the captions and pictures are about MLK Jr., so it's clear that it's about him. The quotes are his own words of peace and equality and the future, and they're not just the renowned "I have a dream" speech.

3. I think it's for anybody looking for quotes and inspiration from MLK Jr., but it's not really clear who exactly it's for. It seems like it's just for anybody.

4. The photos are in the order that shows how MLK Jr. is a father and an inspiring man, but in the end there's a picture of his son near his grave. It shows his integrity, determination, and his passion for his beliefs simply in his expressions. The gray scale and contrast help the effects even more.

5. The contrast shows deep shadows, black and white, separate but in one picture. It shows MLK Jr. in a serious sense rather than a light one, because that's what he was. They showed truth and reality through just one person and one child.

6. Because it caught my eye. The quotes are short and simple, the setup was ideal. If I were to take something away from this, it would be the setup and the style of photography.

Industrialization Newspaper and MSB

I learned about writing news and I got to practice InDesign, which I might use to format my photo essay. I think I worked well with others too, so that if I need help I can ask one of my classmates.

People, groups, and organizations

Surfrider
http://www.surfrider.org/
Someone who can talk about how the pollution affects the life that surrounds it (people or marine life), to answer the subquestion "how does it pollute us?"

Heal The Bay
http://www.healthebay.org/
They do a lot of beach cleanups and water monitoring, so maybe someone can tell us about how polluted the water gets and how long it takes to clean it up or what ways it can be prevented. This can answer two of the subquestions.

Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant: Doug Campbell
http://www.sandiego.gov/mwwd/facilities/ptloma.shtml
Last year he taught the Sewer Science lab in 10th grade, and I thought he'd be a good person to interview and ask about sewage spills. He can probably answer my essential question.

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The Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant is run by the government, I think, and a lot of their sewage might affect the ocean waters. I might interview Doug Campbell, who teaches a program about how sewage is cleaned up at the plant. He might influence my project.

Think Blue might be another government run agency that would probably influence my project. Their mission involved reducing storm drain pollution. Maybe my product can help their program.

The San Diego City council might be put into consideration as well. I've been thinking for a while about ways to influence or motivate people to go to beach cleanups or help organizations like Heal the Bay so that it would be beneficial to them, and I thought, "What if there could be a tax reduction or something? If people cleaned up the beach and got something out of it, maybe they would do it more often." So if I can further this idea to reduce pollution, and find a way to present it to the council, they might pass it.

Comments, plans, critiques, etc.

http://nastudies.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-15-possible-msb-products.html
From Nikita's possible products post, I realized/learned/thought.... Maybe I should think about more details for my art project, like she did. She talked about certain stages, and specific parts of her examples to use.

http://kimloveseleni.blogspot.com/2009/10/idea-2.html
From Kim's second idea, I realized/learned/thought.... it might be good to try something I've never done before, like her. I've never seriously tried to paint any scenery, so I might be doing that. Her example makes me realize that I should pay attention to details too, like if I'm doing a photo essay I should be wary about what's in the background of my photo.

http://maalexander.blogspot.com/2009/10/possible-media-saves-beach-products.html
From Marcus's post, I realized/learned/thought.... that my product should be easy on the eyes and easy to understand. I'll think about ways to make my product simpler or easier to understand.

Possible MSB Products

One possible product is a graphic design poster or a painting/canvas about the pollutants in the sea, possibly a photo manipulation. It can show a time line of how pollutants enter the sea and what happens afterward (if it's cleaned up or degrades). I talked to Nikita and we might do a joint art, so that if her art is put next to mine, the river mouth of the product will lead to another image of a human body and how the pollutants affect it.

(Source: http://www.surfrider.org/portland/blog/archive/2008_09_01_archive.html, http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/newsroom/print.aspx?id=105)

This is a simple but affective photomanipulation and a complex painting. Both were to promote cleaning waters or keeping clean environments. Mine probably won't be as complex a painting if I decide to do an art piece like that, but I'll try my best. I'd paint the water and maybe some marine life, along with trash and murkiness. If I do a photomanipulation like the Rise Above Plastic image, I think a simple but clear picture of the concept would serve well as a final product.


The second idea is a photo essay. I think photos can portray the concept really well, and it might be easy to get the photos of pollution in the ocean or at least of a sewage treatment plant.

(Source: http://envis.maharashtra.gov.in/envis_data/files/news/jul/pollution%20management.html)
This is a good photo of a sewage pipe, it has good composition and lighting and all that stuff. It portrays pollution in a disgusting way, but it's effective in sending a message. There's a LOT of sewage! If I can find a place like this, I can probably get a lot of good photos for a photo essay. I should remember the rules of photography like the rule of thirds and macro and such for this too. A clear message using just pictures would be a good thing too.

MSB Questions and Resources

1.Why and/or how does water get contaminated/polluted?

2. How long does it last? How can it be reversed/fixed (do people clean it up)? How does the water pollute us?

3. Sewer Science Teachers (Point Loma Sewage Treatment Plant?), Surfrider, Heal The Bay

4. Get interviews, read beach reports (on websites). Apply the information to our own research (they test once a month, we test once a month, if our numbers are similar, we can draw a conclusion based off of that).

Industrialization and Coastal Environments

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/oct/12/sd-bay-cleanup-proposal-drags/?metro&zIndex=181212

"The controversy centers on roughly 60 acres of the bay floor south of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge that were tainted decades ago by heavy industry, military operations and storm water.

Lead, arsenic and potentially carcinogenic PCBs are among the toxins causing concern. Environmentalists, scientists and community activists fear the pollutants are harming the marine ecosystem and endangering the health of people who eat fish and shellfish from the bay.

The water board issued its first cleanup proposal in April 2005 and expected to vote on finalizing the order within four months. The plan focused on dredging about 885,000 cubic yards of sediment.

Six parties would have to pay for the cleanup, according to documents from the water board. They are General Dynamics NASSCO, BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair, the city of San Diego, San Diego Gas & Electric Co., the Navy and the parent companies of San Diego Marine Construction Co."


1. What is the issue, controversy or event in the story? What are the basic facts?
Government intervention in the cleaning up of San Diego's bays. Cleaning up contaminated sediment in San Diego Bay would cost 96 million dollars. This is one of the largest environmental cleanups (60 acres) that has taken years to negotiate (the idea was proposed in 2005). 

2. What information is missing from the story?
Why only that one area? Why is it taking so long, is it because of cost? Is the water making people or marine life sick? Why did Coastkeeper and the Environmental Health Coalition quit the mediation efforts?

"King said the negotiations have stretched on because there are many parties involved. He hopes mediation will end up saving time by producing an agreement the board can adopt with few objections.
'This hasn't been foot-dragging. This is just a monster chore,' King said."

Stretched how? When they say "many parties", do they mean the six involved or more?

3. What would be your next steps if you were creating a follow up to this story?
Finding out what the negotiations were and what was finalized, how the bay will be cleaned up, how much it will cost, who will do it, and how the public will respond to it and if they'll support it. Maybe interviewing those people.

MSB Questions

Why and/or how does water get contaminated/polluted? How long does it last and how can it be reversed/fixed?
We all know that the seas are contaminated, but I want to know how exactly they became that way, and how many ways a body of water can become polluted. And we also know that sewage spills and such can be cleaned up, but how does that work? I want to know who cleans it up and how long it takes. Maybe I'll interview someone who does this to find my answers.

What type of sicknesses/illnesses can humans/animals get from the water? Is it dangerous/life threatening?
There was an article from last year's MSB that I read that told the story of a man who got sick from being in the ocean instead of getting better, like how he used to. I want to know what sicknesses he got, and what other diseases might be out there. I can talk to that man, a doctor or expert on these kinds of diseases, and maybe a vet or marine biologist. I want to know if animals can get sick too.

Can life like fish thrive in environments contaminated by sewage or high bacteria levels? Can coastal pollution affect the behavior and/or evolution of marine life or other animals?
When we went to the bay, I saw fish and snails in the water, and I wondered--if the water was polluted, how could they thrive? I know the bay isn't disgustingly dirty, but in some other place, can life thrive? Can plants grow green or fish grow big, or are their evolutions affected by the pollution so that only the fish that can last through the pollution live? Bacteria might affect their growth too. Maybe I can find a marine biologist to talk to about this.

Confederates in the Attic prompt

“Confederates in the Attic” Prompt
        In 1995 in Kentucky, the civil war still seemed to be going on--but not for blacks to get their freedom, but for whites who felt like they were getting theirs taken away.
        Though the blacks were freed from being slaves, whites began feeling like those African Americans were being given privileges and other rights to make up for their years of enslavement. These privileges were more than what the whites had. While the blacks were rising in power, the whites were bottling up the feelings that the slave owners previously had--that they were supposed to have more power than the minority of blacks, they were the ones supposed to privileged. The women who stood up at the Todd County school board meeting complained about that minority having more power when they demanded the Rebel mascot be removed. "I will not compromise my values and equal rights to satisfy a minority."[1] One woman said. What did she believe were equal rights? Did she think that they were giving up their rights to have that mascot if they listened to the African Americans, who had their right to ask for it to be removed?
        Many of the whites believed that the African Americans should have still been slaves. Frances Chapman said that for the blacks, "Slavery was not all that bad, a lot of people were quite happy to be living on large plantations."[1] But her thinking completely changed when the idea of the whites becoming "slaves"--or at least the lower class--was brought up. The subject of controversy was the Rebel flag, a school spirit symbol that caused the murder of Michael Westerman. The flag used to be the symbol of the south that fought to keep slavery going--but this town wasn't even on that side of the war. "Blacks don't really have anything against the flag. They just don't want us to have it. They want the best jobs, the biggest money. Now they want this. If we lose the mascot, it'll just be a matter of time before we lose everything."[1] Chapman said. She seemed to really believe that the blacks were then going to become the "slave masters". This is just like the Reconstruction, when the Freedman's Bureau was established. Benjamin F. Perry, the provisional governor of South Carolina, said, "First, the Negro is to be invested with all political power, and then the antagonism of interest between capital and labor is to work out the result."[2]
        The minority of African Americans seemed to be rising in power, and the whites didn't like it. With everything that happened, it seemed as though the roles were about to be switched. Chapman said in an angry tone, "Don't put us where they used to be."[1] Are those the feelings of all of the townsfolk? No one wants to be enslaved, and who knows that better than the ones who had had no powers previously? The whites just don't understand what it was like, and they're afraid that soon they're going to find out.
        Not only was there a war between races going on, but it also seemed like there was a controversy about the role women had in all of this--many were factory-trapped mothers who wanted their rights as well. The right to vote, the right to have their voices heard, the right to stand up for what they wanted--but who was listening? They felt as if the blacks were taking what was rightfully theirs--they should have gotten the rights before the African Americans, they were white and they were higher and they were there first. Horwitz said, "it struck me that the recent media attention lavished on 'angry white males' neglected the considerable depths of female rage on display..."[1]--they had more feelings bottled up than any white man. They were speaking out against their authority, and not nonviolently in some ways. This is very similar to another murder that happened elsewhere in Kentucky nearby Guthrie, where these women lived and this controversy started. Since 1995, there have been more and more attacks on federal workers, the general authority of anywhere--"The most deadly attack on federal workers came in 1995 when the federal building in Oklahoma City was devastated by a truck bomb, killing 168 and injuring more than 680."[3] The most recent incident was a man being hanged with the word "fed" on his chest--this happened in September of 2009.
        However, these fights and worries in Guthrie were over things that, in the past, mattered little to the whites or blacks. A black storekeeper said, "Kids today, they're weaker and wiser. A lot of things we didn't pay attention to, they do. If we were called a nigger, we shook it off. Just went about our business. Not now."[1] The elder generation might not have started a even a small fight because of something like that. But this trivial thing blew up into a whole murder and trial, and it wasn't even because of the flag--some blacks didn't even know the meaning of it. A young woman, a teenager in high school, supplemented the storekeeper's words when she said, "We aren't going to just take it like our parents did,"[1] and implied that they'd rather do something about those kinds of words and comments than sit back.
        "I feel like my grandchildren will see another civil war,"[1] Said the aunt of the murdered Michael Westerman, Brenda Arms, "Between black and white, not North and South. People just can't seem to get along."[1] With things going on the path that they are now... She might just be right. There might be a war in the small, uneventful town of Todd County, Kentucky.

Sources:
[1] "Confederates in the Attic", "Dying for Dixie" by Tony Horwitz
[2] Barney, William L., The Passage of the Republic: An Interdisciplinary History of Nineteenth-Century America (1987), p. 245
[3] "AP source: Census worker hanged with 'fed' on body" by Devlin Barrett and Jeffery McMurray, http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jbzG_BlkG2Hfc818EPRRn1bBlP6gD9ATASJ00