7 ms·

what is the difference, and why is the difference noteworthy such that you wonder about it?

by abiox 9y ago

throwanem 9y ago
One is set in a spare hospital corridor. Its subject wears scrubs and a woebegone expression. The sense is one of desperation - of at best a forlorn hope, if not of hopelessness outright. It is in every respect commensurate with the textual depiction of the subject as someone struggling nobly under an unjustly imposed burden. The other is lush, full of color and interest and expensive appointments: fine curtains, musical instruments, a leather sofa. Its subject wears a stylish outfit and a look that lies somewhere between a smirk and a sneer. One need not read a subtext of entitlement into the image. Entitlement is the whole of its text. Yet these photographs depict two people whose situations the article they accompany would have us regard as effectively parallel. It's an odd juxtaposition, and one whose origin in mere happenstance would surprise me greatly of so consummately professional an A-list blog as this. The cliché is that a picture is worth a thousand words. These two pictures are worth two very different thousands of words. Such things do happen by accident, but not, I think, at the New York Times. So I'm curious about the purpose that underlay their selection.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  This is the most odd post I've read in quite a while. I was going to reply defending the subject of the article -- a middle-class person with hobbies and a home who fell on some temporary bad luck and was pounded into the ground by an objectively bad confluence of policies. But then I realized you think blue and red pigments are symbols of extravagance, and even in 1905 I'd be pretty lost on how to reply to that...?
  - throwanem 9y ago
    No, I don't. I wonder why one person is made to look like she's living an extravagant lifestyle, and the other just this side of privation. I'm not a professional photographer, just an amateur - and if I did that, I wouldn't have done it by accident. I see no reason to imagine a professional would do it by accident, either. You don't take just one photo and call it good, after all. You take a lot of them, and then you sort through them to choose the ones you publish. The question I'm asking is: why choose these? I think I'm seeing a deliberate attempt to manipulate the reader's sympathies, is what I'm saying. I don't understand what purpose that would serve, but I think it must have been done to serve some purpose, and so I wonder what purpose that was.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      I see. I think you're reading too much into it.
- abiox 9y ago
  i don't see what you see, so i can only attribute your interpretation to your biases/assumptions/worldview. aside from wondering at motives, perhaps you should also wonder why your interpretations are what they are.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    What do you see?

what is the difference, and why is the difference noteworthy such that you wonder about it?

by abiox 9y ago

what is the difference, and why is the difference noteworthy such that you wonder about it?

One is set in a spare hospital corridor. Its subject wears scrubs and a woebegone expression. The sense is one of desperation - of at best a forlorn hope, if not of hopelessness outright. It is in every respect commensurate with the textual depiction of the subject as someone struggling nobly under an unjustly imposed burden. The other is lush, full of color and interest and expensive appointments: fine curtains, musical instruments, a leather sofa. Its subject wears a stylish outfit and a look that lies somewhere between a smirk and a sneer. One need not read a subtext of entitlement into the image. Entitlement is the whole of its text. Yet these photographs depict two people whose situations the article they accompany would have us regard as effectively parallel. It's an odd juxtaposition, and one whose origin in mere happenstance would surprise me greatly of so consummately professional an A-list blog as this. The cliché is that a picture is worth a thousand words. These two pictures are worth two very different thousands of words. Such things do happen by accident, but not, I think, at the New York Times. So I'm curious about the purpose that underlay their selection.

throwawayjava 9y ago
This is the most odd post I've read in quite a while. I was going to reply defending the subject of the article -- a middle-class person with hobbies and a home who fell on some temporary bad luck and was pounded into the ground by an objectively bad confluence of policies. But then I realized you think blue and red pigments are symbols of extravagance, and even in 1905 I'd be pretty lost on how to reply to that...?
- throwanem 9y ago
  No, I don't. I wonder why one person is made to look like she's living an extravagant lifestyle, and the other just this side of privation. I'm not a professional photographer, just an amateur - and if I did that, I wouldn't have done it by accident. I see no reason to imagine a professional would do it by accident, either. You don't take just one photo and call it good, after all. You take a lot of them, and then you sort through them to choose the ones you publish. The question I'm asking is: why choose these? I think I'm seeing a deliberate attempt to manipulate the reader's sympathies, is what I'm saying. I don't understand what purpose that would serve, but I think it must have been done to serve some purpose, and so I wonder what purpose that was.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    I see. I think you're reading too much into it.
abiox 9y ago
i don't see what you see, so i can only attribute your interpretation to your biases/assumptions/worldview. aside from wondering at motives, perhaps you should also wonder why your interpretations are what they are.
- throwanem 9y ago
  What do you see?