Seeing Through Another's Eyes

This is a photo of one of the modern art sculptures around Spitalfields. The idea is that the piece is a frame, the art is what is inside. The art is ever-changing, ever-moving. It helps exactly define and frame the beauty that we walk by in everyday life.

Writing Like This Artist Sees:

 

Preserving the Past Doesn't Look Well for the Future

This was one of the photos I took in London of a War Memorial. I think the ideas of past, present, and future are very well represented here. I took this picture in the present, in London. Quite obviously, the war memorial is built in honor of a past war, and is built in an architectural style of the past. The cranes in the background suggest a future, the future of buildings and growth within London.

This is a present picture, I only took it a few days ago. However as time passes this picture becomes more and more a piece of the past, as pictures are not current, they are snapshots that stay still while the modern day rushes forward. In a year will those cranes still be there? Even now, the cars in the foreground will have moved and the people will be different. You would not be able to exactly replicate this picture or this moment today.

That is partly why I try so hard to take pictures when I am traveling; I try to capture a moment, a feeling and surrounding so that I may share it with family. I almost always fail. I end up with pictures and pictures of walls and architecture that in no way reflect the emotions I felt at the time. Pictures have a way of being distant, up to interpretation. Certainly, photos you have taken can evoke memories, and certain configurations can evoke universal emotions, but this is more difficult to capture in travel photos. I cannot take a picture of a wall and show it to someone and have them see the wall, and feel the wonder of the old the way I did. My dad has criticized my photography skills before, saying that I take too many scenery shots with nothing significant in them. I realize this, but I still try to document moments, even if later I forget them I have the hope that in the future my pictures will evoke the same emotions I felt at the moment I was capturing.

Traveling through London, I almost get the shivers. I got them at the Tower of London, when I realized that the White Tower is from the 11th Century, and here I am inside it, touching it. It made me wonder who else walked through that building, what it looked like in the past and if the people from the past ever thought about if their buildings would last the test of time. I certainly wonder if my generation, or even our time period, will leave a mark the way the White Tower or countless other ancient buildings in London do. The other day we sat down to eat in a pub and realized the building we were eating casually in was older than our country of the United States of America. It is quite odd to think about when you are in a newer country and don't have the chance to be surrounded by such ancient, alive history.

As our society goes, our skyscrapers might last somewhat, but not perfectly. They may stand in the sky like steel skeletons, not what they are today. As far as documentation goes, you need a computer with internet access that operates to find any of our records. If a solar flare came at the Earth stright on (which by sheer chance this hasn't happened already), then our magnetic field would be wiped, all of our electronics fried, and the entire history and records from our generation and future generatiosn would be completely gone. There are no paper backups. It's odd to think that a natural disaster such as that (and if a solar flare such as that happened, that would be the only consequence. We would not burn up, our magnetic field would just get wiped and our technology would no longer operate) that our entire history would be gone since we do not keep anything on paper or in physical backed up form. People in this day and age are obsessed with documentation, with putting their entire lives on the internet, and by random chance it might completely get erased. Our generation's own Great Fire.

London Through the Eye, the Bus, and the Streets

Perspective is an interesting idea. We each have our own unique perspectives, but our perspectives also depend on the context of our surroundings. As I brought up in class, an example of this can be our perception of ourselves. If we look in the mirror for example and believe our outfit is great and coordinated and comfortable then that is that. Then we could go outside, walk the streets of London, observe what others are wearing, and suddenly feel severely underdressed, or sloppily dressed. The first opinion is our perception of ourselves alone in our room, but after we observe others and our surroundings, we perceive ourselves differently when comparisons to others start being made.

Leah in NW does this. She compares herself to Natalie and sees her own insecurities in the form of Natalie's fictitious judgement, and this is different than how she perceives things when she is alone.

Part of our necessity to compare ourselves to others could be our culture--the media is constantly encouraging you to judge and compare yourself as a method of manipulation. It could also be an instinct for us as we are social creatures.

Perspective changes based on the context. London as a city itself is another example. Seeing London from the Eye, I saw the change in the angles of buildings as we rose. Suddenly, I could see more of the roofs than the walls of buildings. I also saw the city spread out--and how large it is. This really impressed me. There was a focus on a lot of buildings that looked important or historical but I could not place because I don't know what the important buildings in London are other than the Eye and Big Ben. Seeing London from the tour bus I saw more of the history of things. We were guided in our perception by our tour guide and I noticed a lot of architecture, and took pictures of buildings that had nothing to do with the tour because the architecture was pretty. Walking around on the streets of London, I see more impressions rather than actual things because I am distracted by focusing on walking, keeping up with our group, wondering when we'll get where we are going, and all the different, smaller sights. I see the sidewalks as not swaths of concrete, but blocks of stone put together. I notice the people passing by, and I'm more self-aware of how I must look to them in style of dress and manner of walking and talking.

I think the tour bus was my favorite way to see London. I appreciate experiencing it for myself on the street and it's important, but I feel like the tour bus is a mix of history and seeing the big picture you get from the eye, but you are close enough to the ground to pick up on littler things like detailed architecture without having to worry about where you are going, because you are sitting on a bus.