Macaulay Seminar One at Brooklyn College

To be perfectly and completely honest: I can’t stand jazz. I have always wanted an opportunity to learn about jazz, maybe even get into it, but after experiencing this concert I know it’s not for me. Every haphazard beat of the drums, every improvised piano solo, every note, made my heart palpitate. The quartet made me anxious. I felt like I was having mini heart attacks the whole night. It’s something about the way every instrument is playing at the same time and they go together but in such an odd way my blood just can’t beat normally. I hated it.

That being said, I’m so grateful I got the opportunity to experience it. Because despite the fact jazz puts my blood flow into irregular roller coasters of discomfort, I can appreciate it. Listening to each instrument on its own was a joy (except the drums, they were the main source of my distress). When I focused in on just the bass, just the sax, I got it. I understood the joy of each performer, the carefully practiced effortlessness that made them masters. It was only when I heard it all together that it sounded like a cacophony of fifty different beats and sounds.

More so than the music, I enjoyed the performers. There is no other way to describe them than cool. They were some cool cats. And they were one. They played in harmony (I didn’t feel that way but I could tell they were). Never was there a spot light on just one, and when there was, they each got to feel the light. You could feel the respect they had for each other, the love for the audience, the love in the audience. It was quite an experience. And although I hate jazz, I’m glad I actually had the chance to find that out, and I’m even more grateful that through my vehement reaction, I could still appreciate it.

The International Center of Photography was a pretty cool place and seemed to have more meaning than I originally thought. As I walked around the first time, I saw a lot of seemingly purposeless, random pictures, some of people smoking, some of people laying in bed naked, or just people moseying around blankly. On my first run through I couldn’t fully see why this was classified as art, because most of the pictures could’ve been taken by me, yet I bet they wouldn’t take our pictures and put them into the ICP.  On my second walk through, where I was accompanied by PAtrick, we discussed why this could be art and came to the conclusion that it was classified as art because it’s real. By that we meant that unlike most photos which try to glorify human life, and make it seem surreal and unimaginably beautiful, these photos captured the average human life in many aspects. Some pictures were boring, mundane, and forlorn, while others were fast-paced, calm, and fun. This perspective on human life is what made it a different type of art form.

Anyway, enough about that, the most striking picture in the gallery was a photo by Lewis Hine, whose title escapes me. The picture shows the progression of time from the times of simple farming, to full industrialization. On the left is a picture of boys working in the field doing everything manually, with a gigantic open sky above them as if to show that they are truly free. As you look more to the right, the photo begins to rise on a slight incline, which shows early machines and people using them, still overlooked by an open sky. When you get to the far right you see many buildings and 2 Empire State buildings that block out the open sky, showing how truly industrial things have gotten, where we can’t see our own skies due to buildings. The Empire state buildings cause the incline to rise sharply as if to relay the exponentiation of our technology in less that a century. Another thing to note, that I noticed while talking to Jonah is that on the left of the picture where the sky is open and vast, conveying freedom, the time period is when people has less freedom and rights and were put down constantly by others. Conversely, on the far right where the Empire State building is blotting out the sky, the time period is when people gained more rights and people became more equal, very interesting.

This was a fun trip, more so than I assumed.

Photography is an activity that I never necessarily tried to engage in at every conceivable chance, but I love to take dozens upon dozens of pictures when a camera is given to me, hoping that a few would turn out well. I was excited to go to the International Center of Photography because this would be my first visit to ICP and I was curious to see what other photographers were exhibiting. As I took my time walking through the galleries and observing the photographs on the first floor, I did find a few of them interesting while others I found to be bewildering. The basement of the ICP housed old, black-and-white photographs and a few colored ones from the time that JFK was president. I enjoyed viewing those as well.

The picture above, named Walking Wawa Parking Lot, taken in Philadelphia in 2008, was one of the photographs that I found to be exceptionally interesting. It was hung on the side, next to the entrance to the room with the projector, and could have been easily missed. At first glance, I saw a man walking on fog or clouds above what looked to be buildings, it seemed, with mountain tops on the right and clouds above. It seemed surreal to me, and it didn’t fit with the theme of the other pictures, and I took a closer look. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the whole image was the result of the reflection off of wet concrete. The ridges at the top of the painting were not the result of debris in the air or the camera lens being dirty, but rather, it was the particles of the concrete emerging from the water. At the bottom of the painting, where the subject’s feet are, you can see the cut-off of the actual person’s feet, with more detail visible on the sneakers because while the image was distorted due to small ripples in the liquid, the actual image remained intact.  The objects at the right of the photo, what I had mistaken for a mountainous ridge of some sort, was actually the reflection of the Wawa store, a car, and other parts of the parking lot. I found this picture to be interesting because unlike the other photographs that had “covert” meanings or symbolic messages, this one caused me to imagine something entirely other and surreal for a whole three to four seconds before seeing the reality. Additionally, the circumstances of the photograph was something that I found to be original because while most of the pictures I’ve seen of reflections tended to be reflections in the mirror, this one was a reflection from wet concrete, a perfect symbol of the city in which it is located and displayed.

Overall, I enjoyed this experience and look forward to numerous ones like it and to visiting ICP on different occasions in the future.

Since I’ve always been interested in photography, I was excited to go to ICP. I liked it, but it was a lot smaller than I anticipated. The two exhibitions we saw, Zoe Strauss and Lewis Hine, were pretty cool. I liked them being shown together because they’re opposites; Strauss photographs present day Philly whereas Hine photographed early 1900’s New York. Descending the staircase from the Strauss exhibit to the Hine one is like going back in time. One piece that caught my eye in the Strauss exhibit was “Man Shot in Leg on Gurney.” It shows a man, clearly just shot in the leg, sitting on a gurney, about to be transported to the hospital. What is remarkable is the man’s demeanor and body language. He’s totally cool about it, smoking his cigarette as if nothing happened, as if it’s just another day. This makes me wonder about everyday life in Philadelphia: is this a common occurrence? It also reminds me of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and R.Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet. In the latter, a man is shot in the arm, but reduces his injury to “just needing a bathroom.” He comes out a few minutes later with a band-aid on and carries on as usual. In short, I liked seeing Strauss and Hine together. It’s really inventive for the museum to juxtapose them in the way they did. I would definitely go back.

Since I hope to major in film and photography I was thrilled to go to ICP. Once we got there, i found myself moved by the pictures on the first floor, and not moved by the beauty of the pictures. I found them provocative and didn’t really enjoy them. I felt like i could have taken some of those pictures, in all honesty. However, once i went downstairs I was blown away at how simple black and white pictures could take my breath away. My favorite picture was of the smiling child who was covered in dirt. It showed how even in the toughest times, there can always be happiness and laughter. I also really enjoyed the JFK exhibit because in high school i learned a lot about the JFK assassination. Another favorite picture was what i call the first cropped pictures. It was a group of maybe 5 or 6 pictures all put together, which i found amazing because at first you cant even tell since it all flowed so beautifully with each other. Overall, I really enjoyed my time there 🙂