WP1: Pre-Writing Assignment 1

I chose my image from a list in the index of Omaha, this being a large iron works. In fact, according to the notes, it was the American , Smelting and Refining Company, the largest iron smelter in the world. The buildings are quite obviously industrial, the further looking newer and the closer looking older and used for storage. It is fairly simple to assume that the area surrounding the view of the picture is likewise industrial, planning usually taking place to keep industry together and away from residential or commercial zones. The foreground of the image seems to be in the worst condition of the facility, with the aforementioned rough-looking (some broken) likely-storage buildings, the mess in the yard, and the fence propped up by boards. Looking at the mess in the visible yard, one might first think it trash or waste just piled, but with the additional information of the subject being a iron works, the piles can be identified as likely metal scrap to be melted down and reused/recycled. I was going to say that you could assume a railway was near until I spotted the train(s) in the center right of the image.

The steel works probably provided steel for additional rail but more likely material for Omaha and probably surrounding areas like Lincoln. Supposedly being the largest iron smelter in the world at the time, it is even vary likely that it received and shipped materials and product from/to places very far away. Taken in 1938, the image shows the factory during the Great Depression. This was probably a source of many jobs for the region, although I wouldn't be surprised if they had experienced their own amount of layoffs due to decreasing business (although it was possibly revitalized during the public work programs being a producer of building materials). That means that these grounds were full of not only the imagined image of the typical factory worker (poor, likely uneducated, even carrying connotations of dirty, rough, etc) but also others not typically factory workers but that had fallen on hard times like the many others, taking what they could get.

An interesting note, probably resulting from coincidence instead of planning or actual lack, the are no people visible in the picture, or cars, or anything non-industrial (the background/horizon being faded enough to make indiscernible). There aren't even any plants that can be identified in the image. The lack of anything organic makes the image appear more stark, emphasizing its industrial nature. This, when matched with the smoke and fading of the distance and the fact that the picture is black and white (just due to the technology of the time), create a sense about as far away from natural as you can get. Accompanying all our sense of the Great Depression as a whole along with ideas about factories (especially during times closer to the industrial era), the picture's elements also give a sense of drudgery/a place that you don't really want to be but may have to.

Weekly Blog Post 7

I'm not particularly interested in photography as an art form. Just as I tend to effectively be a passive learner, I am also often a passive observer in the sense that I watch the whole whilst thinking of else. In my honors creativity seminar we undertook a small photo-documenting project, given a place and required to take a certain number of pictures for several categories, like flora, building, or even sounds (take for instance my picture of my shadow while riding a bike). I left the project with relatively the same view of photography I took into it, that when it comes to visuals, I don't like to linger much longer than the short time in which I absorb the information. Although I may pause to examine an interesting detail or just admire the whole, I prefer to keep moving along, whether it be from a zoo to an art gallery. In the same way that I don't think or remember in narratives, neither do I do so in terms of pictures. Although I'm a very visual thinker, I'm also very conceptual in that thinking.

Although I don't know the "technicals" of photography as an art form, I do know how to handle a camera and digital images. The camera end of photography is hardly a problem with today's modern, digital cameras. We also worked digitally with our photos (for my creativity seminar), managing contrast and other levels to improve the picture quality. Finally, even an average amount of computer experience is more than enough to manage and store the photos after they've been taken.