WP1: Statement of Purpose

The picture I chose took place in the 1930's while the Great Depression was taking place. I hope that people reading my blog and looking at the picture I chose will get a better understanding of the children and the environment in this picture. I want people to feel how they might have been feeling and to understand the situation or event that is going on in this time period. I want people to picture in their head the hardship the United States was going through. To see that everyone was effected by the Depression even wealthy people but the South and African Americans took it the hardest. The people in this picture or even the the people going that went through the Depression maybe have a since of understanding among each other. They may feel sorrow or I went through that to so I don't feel sorrow or sadness "we all went through a rough time".

The picture above is a house that has been flood and has a for sale sign. This is one thing that people during the Great Depression were. My purpose with is picture was another way of getting people to understand why those children in my picture look sad or heart broken. I hope when people look at this picture that they can feel the distress and confusion that these people went through. The south a couple years back when through Katrina and the flood that happen. I know people went and helped then but in the 1930's they didn't have that kind of help because of the financial situation going on in the United States.

In the picture to the right, is a father feeding his 4 children Christmas dinner. I don't think any parent especially a father wants to make there children stand while they eat, especially Christmas dinner. This picture to me shows love and what our nation use to be about...family! He might not been able to provide much, but he gave them a meal and family time to eat around a table.

I hope people get another since of how our nation was struggling. It wasn't just African American people, poor white people, it was everyone in the United States. I do believe that the south and south African American people took the stock market crash of 1929 the hardest though. I think they have struggled for years to get back to where they were. The southern states not only go hit with the stock market crash, but floods, droughts, and hurricanes as well.

WP1: Pre-Writing Assignment 3

By 1910, a majority of black farmers in the Delta had lost their land and were sharecroppers. By 1920, the third generation after freedom, most African-Americans in Mississippi were landless laborers again facing poverty (New World). "The Southern Blacks felt the worst of this economic despair, as seen by the grand migration of blacks to the north and west. There opinion of their social status however differed from one interviewee to the other. Some said the life the lived currently was worse than the life of slavery that they used to live; some said their life now was easier than the life of slavery and some yet said it did not make a difference free or enslaved" (Briggs). A perfect quote is one made by Andrew Boone who said “It’s all hard, slavery and freedom, both bad when you can’t eat" (Shaw)

In 1929, the Great Depression started and when on through all the the 1930's. It didn't just effect the black people but the whites as well. Families couldn't afford clothes or food because their husbands and fathers have lost their jobs. In 1927, the Great Mississippi flood took place where my picture was taken (The Mississippi Delta). The people in that area where still trying to recover from that when the the Great depression took place.

After doing more research on the time era of when this picture was taken, it hasn't altered my perception of this picture. It has more confirmed that the way the children are dressed and their facial expressions are showing what they felt that time. They show us how the United States felt at this time. Most people in the United States where depressed and going through hardship. Either they have lost their job, can't find one or their crops have been destroyed by weather. In Mississippi they were still trying to recover from the great flood but in California they were dealing with a drought. It wasn't just African American people suffering, it was wealthy white people as well because of the stock market crashing.

Work Cited

Stephanie J Shaw, "Using the WPA Ex-Slavery Narratives to Study the Impact of the Great Depression." Journal of Southern History, Vol. 69 No. 3 (Aug 2003), 634.

Briggs, Jennifer. "1930's Race relation in the American South: Reationship of Grace McCune and Mirriam McCommons." 9 March, 2004.

New World Encyclopedia. "Mississippi."

WP1: Pre-Writing Assignment 2

The photographer had a lot to decide when taking this this picture. The picture to me looks like it is arranged in a way that it looks natural. As if that is where the children would be standing in normal settings. The photographer, also had to decide weather it be in black and white or color. As you could see it was in black and white. Black and white pictures bring out different feeling and meaning to a picture rather than color does. I don't believe the pictures has been retouched or edited either. It captured the real picture as it was taken. I think that is why he took the picture from the angle that he did so that it got enough lighting so it wasn't to dark or to bright.

This picture was framed and cropped so that our main focus was on those four child. She may have left out the others because she couldn't capture what she wanted. I believe she choose to include those children because their facial expression, their appearance, and their body gestures.

The hue of this picture is obviously black and white. The picture is unsaturated. "A highly colorful stimulus is vivid and intense, while a less colorful stimulus appears more muted", and I believe this picture feels that way. Like it has captured that moment of what they felt at that moment and has frozen it. It's not an intense picture. And has a medium or normal of brightness. Its not to bright or to dark that you can't make out the object in the picture.

Colors of a photograph can bring out emotional responses or pathos in us. As it says in the book "our responses are not random but instead have much to do with what we have learned to associate with different colors". As a young child driving down the road and you see a yellow and red sign it makes you hungry for McDonald's. People have done studies to see what color's to use to get people attention or to make their point. I believe photographs do the same thing when taking photographs.