VTS II Blog Topic 7: Image #3

Kuwait City, Kuwait. Steve McCurry

This VTS discussion went really well and went in a different direction than I expected it to. The discussion kept going back to the destruction and the cause of the destruction rather than the man reading amidst the destruction as I had hoped it would. In hind sight it makes perfect sense because our town had just experienced a devastating tornado only a year prior and this type of imagery has been prevalent in all of our minds. 

W. Eugene Smith
Untitled
1948

 In comparison to the Eugene Smith photograph from the first discussion these two images have several similarities. Both photographs are visually packed with details from left to right, top to bottom. Both photos have a central figure. Both figures are dressed as to suggest their profession. Both figures seem to be lost in their thought or in the book. Both images seem heavy and have a serious nature to them.The Smith photograph is noticeably from a different time and the McCurry photo is from another culture. Both of the images are photographs and have a very similar style with the exception of color and black and white. 


I feel like I had fewer responses to image 3 but that the responses I had to image 3 were much more in depth and maybe even more personal to the students. I do feel the students were more engaged and connected to their responses with the McCurry image and I do think that goes to the recent tornado in our area. I will also say that we literally ran out of time at the end of time with our discussion of the McCurry image, so the discussion could have easily gone on with more responses. 


This is difficult for me to answer. I would like to think yes. My photography students this semester are outstanding. Their work is really really good. I hate to say that they are better than last semester but they are. I don't know if I'm doing anything differently or not. I'm certainly not aware of any changes. The reason that this is difficult for me to answer is because I have two photography classes right now and I'm only doing VTS with one of them. And I'm getting phenomenal work from both classes consistently. I certainly think doing VTS is helping the students to articulate what they want to do with their photographs. An example from class, I had given the class a self-portrait assignment and a student in the VTS came to me and was asking me about how to accomplish and execute her idea and she was able to articulate her idea and explain to me exactly why she wanted things to look a particular way to the viewer and I really think that was a direct result of her experience with VTS. The students act like they hate VTS but they really don't. They enjoy the discussions and I feel confident in making this assertion because they are actively participating. I'm not bribing them, they aren't sleeping or talking during the discussion. They are engaged and involved. I'm really not even having to call on them to participate. They are raising their hands waiting to get their comments in and sometimes just blurting out stuff because they can't wait.