Art is a medium used to open people’s eyes.
On a Tuesday night I attended an exhibit called Darfur/Darfur. It was organized in order to promote and spread awareness about the situation in Darfur. It is a travelling exhibition that through digitally projected images aims to open people’s eyes to the catastrophe that is happening in Sudan. It is only one of the steps taken by the organization in NYC, which during the week of G-8 meetings, is planning more protest and rallies.

On Thursday September 24th, 2009, I exited my last class and met up with a few friends for a trip to meet a photographer by the name of Thomas Neff. The trip was a disaster before we even arrived at the Macaulay building. We were stuck on the 1 train for nearly 10 minutes! Eventually, we made it to the building. After we got seated, Thomas Neff was introduced. He stated how he was a volunteer photographer who went around taking pictures because he wanted to, not because it was his job. His presentation were photos of the disaster of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

On a break between classes the other day, I met up with a few friends in Madison Square Park. While walking along observing all of the different people and hearing the mumbled chatter of hundreds of conversations, I saw a golden retriever laying on the ground. As I followed the dog's leash up to the hand of his owner, I noticed that in the man's lap was a large piece of canvas and scattered around him were various painting supplies. I noticed that the painting was a self-portrait which displayed both the painter and his dog just as they appeared at that moment.

I arrived to the meet the artist event exhausted, after not realizing Central Park would be in between the 6 train and the Macaulay Building and having to speed walk there so that I could make it before the speaker began. I made it just in time. When the photographer began speaking I was surprised to hear his photographs would be based on Hurricane Katrina. I remember the incident well, but as many times as I've read about it or seen the destructive pictures in the news, I never thought about it as intimately as I did throughout the presentation.

          Part II of Camera Lucida turned my understanding completely around. The first part concluded with a discussion of a number of photographs and the elements of photography such as studium, punctum, referent as well as the ideas on ontology and semiotics. Part two focuses on other ideas like the "winter garden photograph". In the second part of the book Barthes says "painting can feign reality" while photography can not because a photograph involves something "that has been".