Photo shoots 1 and 2

Photographers’ Photography

Effigy #2, near Jacumba, California / Efigie nº 2, cerca de Jacumba, California, 2009 Richard Misrach There is an unsettling atmosphere surrounding this picture. The drab color scheme and the setting add to the eerie scene. I like how the effigies give off a sense of foreboding; their unnaturalness and attempt at mimicking humanity makes…

Visual Eras

Paradigm I Paradigm I was an era of relative solitude and isolation from neighboring countries. To illustrate this, I felt a conceptual photo was in order. The majority of the picture consists of grass, with trees growing in the background behind the fence. This represents how, in Paradigm I, each country found themselves to be…

Photography Journal

Film Studies Journal

Favorite Images of the Past

One of the best things about growing up in New Jersey is experiencing the drastic differences in climate and atmosphere in each of the four seasons. The summers were hot, the winters were cold, and the fall and spring were right in between. Despite the freezing temperatures, winter remained - and still remains -- to…

Annihilation

Nature has always been a mystery to mankind — a seemingly beautiful and maybe even peaceful appearance with a chaotic and lawless reality. Annihilation takes this understanding of nature and expands it to a supernatural level. In a way, the Shimmer can be seen simply as a dramatic metaphor for nature and creation. On the outside, the…

Arrival

Humanity’s strongest barrier — stronger than any wood, brick, or steel — is language. Without language comes a lack of communication, hindering progress and and encouraging conflict. These ideas are made explicit in the thought-provoking film, Arrival. The heptapods’ inability to communicate with the human race leads them to be treated as the unknown, a vast…

eXistenZ

Why is virtual reality commonly presented to the world as a game? It is because virtual reality is precisely that: a game. It is an incomprehensible rule-lacking game that mankind continues to toy with. That being said, eXistenZ presents many different possibilities and outcomes of virtual reality. Virtual reality has the power to morph one's perception…

Ex Machina

The intense and thought-provoking movie Ex Machina has certainly left a mark in not only the world of movies, but also on the ideas of artificial intelligence and the power that women may one day, if not already, hold. It is true that one's intention for watching this film could simply be for entertainment, but it…