心血来潮, drew some stuffs..

Assignment 6: Conceptual Portraiture

Theme: Look into the Ordinary

My concept is to use this opportunity to introduce my close friends in NUS who happened to be all bikers.

My title for this assignment is "Introducing my biker friends".

Using photography and digital manipulation, I wish to portray the biker's distinct personality.
All 6 bikers have different personalities and they are displayed through the combination of their gestures, background and the signs.

The photos below are the orginal photos that i used to photoshop. First, I have problems finding a plain white background to take my friends so that it will save me the trouble from 'erasing' off the background. Next, bikes are not allowed at west coast park and on the beach. Therefore by placing the bikers on places where 'bikes' are restricted from, it offers another type of challenge for me to do the final pieces.

Ethics

Last thursday (17th Nov), something terrible happened at the Zoo in Sg. A zoo cleaner was killed by 3 white tigers and it was claimed that the man was behaving 'erratically' a few hours before he was killed and he even said things like "Goodbye, you won't see me again." (from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/389571/1/.html)

•What are the ways readers can judge the credibility of an image even in this era of digital manipulation?

I guess its mostly based on one's perception and mindset to judge an image be it an original or manipulated photo. One have to look at the context , setting, characters involved and think for himself/herself whether does it spell the truth or not. For instance, this news was popular for days and my friends were talking about it and some even went youtube to check if there's any videos regarding the white tiger attack. It was stated on Newpaper that some students and tourists actually caught the 4 minutes of horrid on their cameras.

A couple (witness) were interviewed and they were reluctant to provide information of what they saw as they felt shock and distressed. (from http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,183664,00.html)

Thus out of curiosity, I decided to go youtube to check it out.
I found this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PdOp6Uyzr8 and the name of the video was 'Attack By White Tiger In Singapore Zoo'.

Well, I felt uncomfortable watching the first few seconds of the clip, and i realized that its not the actual video. And then, I heaved a sigh of relief because if its the real clip, I will have insomia for one whole week.

In Ms Jing's lecture she said that a good journalist will have to record what has happened on the spot and whether to publish or not, its up to the journalist. In this incident, the authorities have chosen not to let the actual video be published to the public as it will cause psychological harm to many including the family members of the victim.

Its a good move done by them, and it spared many from having insomia or some fright if the actual video is being leaked out onto youtube. Well done!

•Imagine yourself as a reader representative for a newspaper. What would you tell a reader who complained to you about a picture of a car wreck that was particularly upsetting?

Well, I guess the situation of a car wreck and the white tiger attack incident are two different issues to start with. I rode my bike on the road daily and I have seen quite a lot of accidents on the road for the past 2 years. Blood stains on the road, cars on fire and truck exploding are just to name a few. If there is a serious car wreck, I think its fine to publish the story out as it will allow the rest (the non road user and road user) to know what is going on and to allow people to think twice before doing anything silly. (e.g drink driving or reckless driving)

I would tell the reader that it will be more beneficial to allow the larger public to learn something out of a story about an accident. It may be a good thing to prevent such tragedy to happen again. Moreover, a picture tells a thousand word. Readers are constantly searching for the 'truth' and by presenting images alongside with words in the newspaper, it will allows reader to judge the 'truthfulness' of the news themselves.

Its tough to balance between ethics and professionalism and in order to handle a certain sticky situation, it comes with experiences and lots of exposure as well.