Group Work: Descriptive Text: Napalm Girl

The very first thing that catches the eye of someone observing the picture we chose, would be a young naked and barefooted girl slowly running towards the person taking the picture. She has her arms stretched away from her body, as if she was shaking them to try and alleviate unbearable pain. Her mouth is hanging wide open and her face is contorted with what might be excruciating pain or extreme anger. This girl is depicted as the centre of both the photograph and the scene displayed in the photograph. Around her there are four more children, almost all of them equally distressed, following or preceding the young girl. If you look at the position of their arms and legs, it seems like they are not walking, but running away from something which might be the cause of their distress. The five children are running along a broad and seemingly deserted road and are followed by five calm-looking soldiers, some of them armed with machine guns. The street, which runs a straight line through the picture, is surrounded by what might be a flat meadow landscape and three or more dilapidated looking houses. If you focus your eyes on the end of the road, you can spot a billowing cloud bank of smoke in the back of the picture, which might be the source of the children’s distress. The smoke cloud completely covers the sky and causes the rest of the landscape to disappear into impenetrable darkness.
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Narrative Article Homework

Desperately clutching her mother’s hand in a tight grasp and holding a ragged looking teddy bear in the other, Yunjin (6) takes a cautious look around. The growing commotion around her fills the air with nervous tension and deafening noise. Yunjin’s mother Kim (36) drags her daughter along and into a mass of furious protesters where the little girl disappears in a sea of angry voices. Yunjin’s older sister was one of the passengers aboard flight MH370 when it disappeared and presumably crashed on March 8th. Kim, like all the other protesters, demands an apology from the Malaysian government. “The government has not given this case the necessary attention it needs. We want to find out what happened to our families.”, said Kim. Yunjin carefully lifts the teddy to her face, trying to stifle the loud cries of the grieving relatives that seek justice. Kim lifts Yunjin into her arms and promises not to give up for her younger daughter’s sake. After all, Yunjin wants to give this teddy bear to her sister, even if only to say goodbye.

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/30/flight-mh370-chinese-relatives-apology-malaysia-missing-plane 

Little History of Photography - Narrative

First Draft

Seeing all those people strolling through this museum makes me wish for the ability to speak. I wish I could put everything I know about photography into words and tell these people about how it is possible for them to take a picture today. I want them to know that the development that took place between 1839 and today has shaped photography in numerous ways.
I myself am old, some might say ancient. I am one of the first pictures that were ever taken and it is due to my creator Louis Daguerre that the foundation stone for photography was laid in 1839. This new technology baffled and fascinated the masses but it remained a privilege granted only to wealthy people for a very long time. Paying 25 gold francs for the silver plates to build a camera obscura was not something anybody could afford. Still, photography managed to outweigh the art of painting because it managed to grasp the moment of the picture in a more eloquent way. David Octavius Hill was one of the photographers who managed to do exactly that in each of his pictures, even though most of his subjects did not look directly at the camera. Around the 1860s people first started to retouch the negatives and the first sessions of studio photography represented a decline in taste. The props used in the pictures, to make it easier for the subject to stand for a longer period of time, made the picture look, if I may say so, surreal and ridiculous. Another undesirable aspect that was first found in pictures taken at this point in time was the appearance of a halo. The long exposure times illuminated the picture, which practically shone out in comparison to the usually darker background. After the 1880s though, this halo became a desirable feature of every picture that was taken. As only quite wealthy people could afford having pictures taken, this halo was associated with wealth and well-being. Being able to recreate this halo in the picture enabled everybody, including factory workers, to look well-off. Years and years later the birth of creative photography changed the history of photography yet again.
Unfortunately, this is where my story ends. I am old and I don’t remember much of the history after that. But maybe someday, another picture will be able to finish this story and maybe someone will listen.

Feedback from my classmates:

Julia and Bianca generally liked my text. They liked my choice of vocab and complimented my writing style. However, they made me aware of the fact that my text consisted of too many facts. Even though the first and final paragraph of my text were narrative, the bits inbetween seemed to be just a list of facts. They helped me figure out which bits to eliminate in the text and which ones to keep for the final version.

Final Version:

Seeing all the visitors strolling through this museum makes me yearn for the ability to speak. I wish I could put everything I know about photography into words and tell these people about how the shaping of photography’s history made it possible for them to take a picture today.
     I myself am old, some might say ancient: I am one of the first pictures that were ever taken and it is due to my creator Louis Daguerre that the foundation stone for photography was laid in 1839. Like me, all my brothers and sisters here next to me also played their roles in shaping the history of photography. If they spoke up, they would agree with me and tell you how they managed to baffle and fascinate the masses. This fellow here to my right for example would tell you about the fact that for a very long time photography used to be a privilege granted only to wealthy people. My brother to my left would share a different story with you. He’d talk about how after so many years of trying to get rid of a halo, he was the first picture to be retouched in order to recreate this certain aspect. As the halo, created by long exposure times and low light sensitivity, was considered a sign of wealth, factory workers living in the period of industrialization wished to own pictures that included the halo to make themselves look well-off.
     Unfortunately, no matter how interesting all of this may sound to you, my words fall on deaf ears in this museum. I am very old and forgetful and I am not quite sure how much longer I’ll be able to tell all these stories. But maybe someday, another picture will be able to tell the same stories and maybe someone will finally listen.
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