Comparing and Contrasting Conventions of Artists' Statements

Comparing/ Contrasting Artists’ Statements

            I found artists’ statements for 3 photographers that I really like, and are in a field that I would like to get into.  The e photographers that I chose are Paul Hebert, Oliver Walker and David LaChapelle.  All 3 of their artists’ statements are very different from one another.  Paul Hebert’s is a general statement about who he is and what he looks for in a moment when he takes his pictures.  He says that he is looking for raw emotion.  He says that he does homework on the artists that he shoots before hand so he can get some insight on who they are, and what they will bring to the table.  Oliver Walker’s artist statement is extremely short and to the point.  His statement doesn’t really go into detail about what he does, but it does list whom his major clients are.  It also gives a slight hint as to who he is.  He apparently likes burritos and Nick Cave.  David LaChapelle’s statement is the one that is very specific about a certain exhibit that he did.  I couldn’t find a general statement about him.  In his statement, he speaks about how his pieces are trying to make the viewer have certain reactions, and get them to see the human body in a different light.  All 3 did give some information about who the photographer is.  They also stated the names of their clients to give them some credibility.  The length of the statements all differed too.  One was only about 2 or 3 sentences, the second was a paragraph, and the third was 2 pages.

            I liked the ones that were short and more to the point.  David LaChapelle’s statement was sounding a bit too pretentious.  It was starting to sound like a snobby artist who is trying to sound cool.  I liked that they all stated previous or current clients.  This shows where they are in their careers.  If these top celebrities want them as their photographer, they must be pretty good at what they do.  They are going to have this photographer’s image of them sent out to the masses and this will help create a persona for the celebrities.

Understanding Rhetoric

Understanding Rhetoric

            I couldn’t find the article “Why Rhetoric?” but I did read “Writing Identities.” In this particular reading, the cartoon was trying to get some point across about how you have to present yourself when you are trying to make certain points, or if you want to be a credible source.  One example given was that if you state that you are a college freshman when writing on a blog aimed at teenagers applying for college, or stating that you’re a freshman in college when trying to discuss peace in the Middle East.  You won’t be as credible in the latter discussion.  This has something to do with rhetoric, but it got lost on me.  I didn’t quite understand what was going on in the story.  There was a superhero, some lady doing a bunch of wardrobe changes and some other guy who nobody seemed to pay much attention to.  I didn’t quite understand how theses stories worked together.

            There was another story about how you come off to other people when trying to speak with them.  You don’t want to sell yourself short, or oversell yourself either.  The example in the cartoon was when the girl wanted to get an internship in a field that she normally doesn’t work in.  In order for her to get said internship, she had to sell herself as a person who does work in that field.  Her first draft of her letter stated that she wanted to do the internship even though it wasn’t what she was used to.  She undersold herself.  The second draft oversold her when she embellished a couple of things on her résumé to make herself stand out.  It wasn’t until the third draft that she gave proper examples of things that she had actually done that really would help her in getting the internship.

Navigating Genres

Navigating Genres

            Well, I did not enjoy reading this paper at all.  It was extremely boring.  I actually fell asleep 3 times reading it.  I felt like the writer just kept rambling on and on about genres and it wasn’t really going anywhere.  I feel like this entire paper could have been shortened down to about a page or two at most, and I would have been able to understand it/ enjoy it a little more.  As I was reading, I was able to find out what a genre was, and then I would get completely lost as I kept reading.  In the part where the author writes about the genre of writing a ransom note, he goes into way too much detail of explaining it.  Then he goes into talking about rhetoric for the specifics of the ransom note.  Instead of just getting to his point, he blabs on about nothing.  He gives too many examples for everything he is trying to explain.  It gets annoying for me.

            This author also seems like he was trying to upset me as a reader.  He even said so towards the end.  He states “Chances are that I have left you more confused than you were before you began this essay.  Actually, I hope that I have left you frustrated.”  He absolutely did.  To me, a good time does not include reading.  I despise having to read or write papers, and this just made me even more upset than I was to begin with.  I can tell you that I will not retain anything from this reading in the future that I didn’t already know.  I was concentrating more on the fact that I was annoyed more than what the author was trying to get across to me.  I really hope that the future readings for this class are at least interesting and not annoying to read.

About Me

“About Me”

            My birth name is Edward Rodriguez.  I was born on March 14, 1981.  I was adopted at birth and given a different name.  My adopted name is Karl Kaiser.  Since I grew up with the name of Karl, that’s what I’m used to.  Once I started to get old enough that, for legal reasons, I had to start going by my birth name of Edward Rodriguez, I still went by Karl.  That’s when people started referring to me as Karl Rodriguez.  It’s all very complicated.  A lot of things in my family are complicated.  I am the youngest of 14 children.  There are 7 boys and 7 girls.  I know that a lot of people will be very surprised when they hear that.  It’s a large number.  This is how that breaks down.  My dad had 2 boys and 2 girls with his ex wife.  My mom had 3 boys and 1 girl with her ex husband.  When they married each other, it was like a “Brady Bunch” family with 8 kids.  When they were married to each other, they adopted 2 boys and 4 girls.  That makes up my big family of 14 kids. 

            I’ve lived in Long Beach, California my entire life until moving to Ventura just after New Years Day this year.  I love my city more than most things in this world.  It’s weird to people outside of Long Beach to understand, but believe me when I say that people from Long Beach have a lot of pride.  Long Beach is a big city with a lot going on all of the time.  You have many neighborhoods that are very old, and a lot of families that have lived in Long Beach for generations going way back to before it was incorporated in 1897.  If you have never been there, I highly recommend it.  You can ask me, and I can try to help you find something fun to do.