Ashley Batac

Hey readers! Welcome to blog post #9! Thank you for making it this far! This week I will be discussing photographic truth and the many ways we manipulate different aspects of our social media to hide our insecurities.  Spending lots of time on social media can lead to feeling disconnected from and unsatisfied by the real world. Many people only show their best highlights on social media - the dates, trips, or even their new purchases. The mundane details of life are rarely shown, but you know they exist. While sharing accomplishments and updates isn't wrong, it can be taken to an extreme. People may begin to put a filter over every aspect of their lives to make things seem better than they really are. Between filters and the constant highlight reel we see on social media, we can feel like our lives don't measure up to the excitement of everyone else's. In turn, we may feel the desire to portray our own experiences as more exciting than they really are. We may manipulate the

  Welcome back again!  Today's post deals with how photos can create a sense of being both inside of and outside of the special moments we capture. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdnyb15LUNcwMr6y7_SdB92jyDou2f_S7B4tsc0/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Jurgenson explains that the idea that digital connection is unhealthy and less real runs parallel to the claim that the social photo pulls out of reality. He further mentions that the "worry is that the ubiquity of social photography threatens our ability to really live in the moment " (Jurgenson, 78). But what even is "the moment?" What does it mean to be "in" it? This first photograph captures a moment in time and space - it is an image of an image. To the viewer, one can see a polaroid picture of my beautiful family. The distance between the camera and the object is rather short, creating a sense of closeness or intimacy. However, the viewer is like an outsider looking in, unaware of the actual moment being captured.

Hi reader! Welcome to blog post #6! This week is all about selfies, self-portraits, and how we constantly document our lives online.  With smartphones in our pockets, always with us, it seems we cannot really help it. We take pictures of our food, record the places we go, make posts about our joy - and, of course, share photos of our faces. Out of all the ways we document our lives, selfies are particularly notable. Over the past decade or so, they have become present everywhere. According to Jurgenson, "the selfie is 'authenticated' by the markings of the form, which conveys an intimacy akin to looking in the mirror...The selfie lets us share that mirror-view, what we see when contemplating our self, considering what we are" (Jurgenson, 55). A selfie is a photograph that you take of yourself spontaneously, usually taken with a cell phone camera for the purpose of sharing on social media. It's interesting that Jurgenson describes the authenticity of selfies becaus

  Welcome back! This week's blog post is about grids and patterns! https://www.instagram.com/p/CdDolytLKS0GsEl5vauvxYtE1FJG-y5a6jHN1I0/ This first photo depicts my younger sister looking out of our patio window at our small apartment in Hawaii. This image is rather dark, but displays a glimpse of what downtown Honolulu looks like. The viewer can see multiple grids - from the railing to the architecture seen in the background. According to Lupton and Phillips a grid "can work quietly in the background, or it can assert itself as an active element" (Lupton and Phillips, 187). I argue that grids are serving both functions in this photo. For my little sister, a grid is asserting itself as an active element because her viewpoint of the Ala Wai Canal is manipulated by the grid created by the railing. In addition, the viewer can see grids working quietly in the background from the tall condo buildings.  Consistent columns create an underlying structure and makes the layout proce

  Hey all! Welcome to blog post #4! For this week, I played with framing and hierarchy to bring focus in different ways.  https://www.instagram.com/p/CcxtVg9LKqG5X43hayJD73z65oglpMOm5dbG4k0/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= With these two photos, I experimented with cropping in an unexpected manner. According to Lupton and Phillips, "by closing in on a detail, cropping can change the focus of a picture, giving it new meaning and emphasis" (Lupton and Phillips, 119).  The first photo is the original photo portraying the hidden moon behind the vast sky with fluffy clouds and part of a tree on the lower right hand corner. I used my phone and played with cropping by zooming in on the tree, bringing focus to it and "giving it new meaning." In the second photo, the viewer's perspective is more limited as the photograph portrays only the top part of the tree.  One thing that reminded me of back home in Hawaii were Acai bowls. This week I took a trip to satisfy my craving and played

  Welcome to blog post #3! When I was younger, I used to grab a box of old photos to take a trip down memory lane and relive past experiences, but now Snapchat and Facebook do that for me. Whether it's grainy filters or automatically generated On This Day photos, media has changed the way I engage with nostalgia. With social media at our fingertips, and the platforms delivering nostalgia, most of us engage with it without intent.  https://instagram.com/p/CcfcsKZL7XxREKFPYfUqoyof-sMwMQumhwIE0o0/ Nostalgia is a unique feeling and one that is quite common. To me, nostalgia is a wistful affection for the past and remembering something with fondness.  Both of these images capture moments of me when I was younger at the beach. The smell of the ocean and the feeling of sand on my feet stir up emotions of relaxation and remind me of home.  In  The Social Photo on Photography and Social Media , Nathan Jurgenson mentions that nostalgia "looks toward what once was, not toward what could