Where Children Sleep - James Mollison(2011)
Source:http://www.jamesmollison.com/wherechildrensleep.php

This photo essay is called Where Children Sleep, created by James Mollison. In the synopsis, he stated that it aimed to tell the stories of diverse children around the world by portraits and picture of their bedroom. He came up with the idea when he and his friend talk about children’s right, he instantly think about his bedroom. It was very significant to his childhood and reflected to what he had and who he was so he think that it would be a good idea to address the situation affecting children around the world. [Source:http://www.jamesmollison.com/wherechildrensleep.php]

Second, when I look at some picture form the place that I am more familiar like this one from Yunnan, China. Not only that he had a poster of Mao Zedong and he dressed he is from the time of Cultural Revolution in his portraits.





[Sources:http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/where-children-sleep/?_r=1]


There are also a lot of different little details that seems really odd like you will see that children form third world country have dirt in their face and they look messy compare to children who are living in more wealthy places are very nice and clean.

It makes me wonder, does this photo really truly reflected what is going on with these children or the prejudgment of the photographer actually makes the photo distorted from the reality and try to make a “statement”.



The official website did not feature the background of the children, if you want to see more details please go to: http://issuu.com/chrisboot/docs/where_children_sleep_by_james_mollison, where you can watch the whole book in flash.

Source:http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/every-world-press-photo-winner-from-1955-2011

This photo I chosen to analysis was the winner of the World Press Photo awards of 2006.It was taken in a street in Haret Hreik, a neighborhood in Lebanon. The neighborhood had been targeted five weeks and eventually bombed for a campaign against Hezbollah militants. The photo was taken at the time that ceasefire came into force and thousands of Lebanese rush back to their home.

At the first glance, the picture can be really disturbing. In the font, you can see the young and beautiful woman with a model look just wearing their sunglasses and chilling in their shiny red convertible car. It remind people the image from either James Dean in Rebel without a Cause, driving his fast car or some photo spread from Vogue. It was really glamorous. But with the background of people walking around their collapsed home. The contrast just makes the photo really bizarre and disturbing to watch. You cannot help yourself but wonder, what were they doing there?

But there are another story to the picture. In an interview with BBC news, the photographer and the young people in the picture review that actually live there and the car is actually lent form the girlfriend of the guy who is driving the car. The car also played a big role in the war, they took medication to people in these area who refused or cannot leave their home. [Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6385969.stm]

It actually provide a quite different side of story, what inspire me is that can we still trust our eyes with just one photo? Nevertheless, this is still a good photo when it can create a huge contrast and discussion.

Swiffer commercial (2013) 
Sources: http://www.adrants.com/2013/06/swiffer-apologizes-for-putting-rosie-the.php

We can do it(1943) Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:We_Can_Do_It!.jpg

Swiffer, a line of cleaning products released a campaign that feature their product Steamboost which is a steam mop that cleaning dirt with a steaming pad.Feminist columnist stating that the campaign is discriminate against women.(Ref:www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/03/swiffer-ad-rosie-the-riveter-photo_n_3380191.html?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women)  Shortly after these columns released, Swiffer tweeted apologies saying that they are not intend to offend any group with the advertisement and the will make changes as quick as possible.(Ref:www.businessinsider.com/swiffer-pulls-rosie-the-riveter-ad-2013-6%20/06/03/2093601/swiffer-rosie-the-riveter/)


The controversial Swiffer campaign feature a female model dressed up as Rosie the Riveter holding the product Steamboost with the slogan “Get a deep clean with steam clean.” Rosie the Riveter is a female cultural icon of America, representing women who worked in the factories during World War II while the male workers were in the military.Feminist mostly criticize the commercial treat Rosie the Riveter as a joke and stereotyping that woman should be cleaning the kitchen.


The truth is although more women in America being the primary bread winner for the household, they still did most of the most of the household activities. (Ref:http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/06/25/506017/women-still-doing-housework-and-working/)World a company release a commercial try to insult and sexually discriminate against their main consumer? Probably not.


Beside, Rosie the Riveter is should not be a feminist icon.The image was started as a propaganda. When you take a look to the image, you would notice that although Rosie flexing her muscles and wearing a work shirt, but she is also wearing plenty of makeup. The campaign is not created out of goodwill to encourage women to take over the jobs, the government are forced to do that and they still think that women should keep their feminine appeal when doing it.

           Right after learning this week portfolio topic, the first cartoon comes to my mind is this one created by Mike Luckovich back in 2011.

         This cartoon is based on a series of debate on Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories which caught public attention because Donald Trump making different statements about the birthplace of  Barack Obama.At that time, Donald Trump said that he considers running for President, so it is believed that he tried to attack his competition.

         The artist used the artistic techniques of irony and exaggeration to help proving the point.By exaggerating the signature hairstyle of Donald Trump at the left side,the readers can immediately get the ideas of who were portrayed in the cartoon and bring more comedy factor to the cartoon. 

          Besides, the artist created an imaginary saturation that Trump listening to the results of an opinion poll that shows "97% question whether your hair was born in this country".This used the technique of irony by mocking the publics rather believe that Trump hair is a wig and made from others country compare to the president were not born in United States.

         The point of view of the cartoonist can easily seen by the way he mocking the saturation is that he thinks that the way Trump going after Obama  after the he had already released the birth certificates back in 2008 is ironic and the motivation is questionable.

         I think that it was an awesome cartoon because the way the cartoonist portraying the saturation can easily catch the attention of the audience.They can also get how ironic of the event were which was which the cartoonist tried to prove in a very short period of time.

          After reading more comics form Matt Madden’s website, I like the one created by Craig Gassen most.

          The first reason is because it did not change too much thing form the original comic but it still turn the whole story upside down. In this comic, the artist simply just change the image and added two thinking cloud in the first two frame and the story become completely different compare to the original one.

           The second reason is the storyline of the comic. When compare to the original one which is a very lightweight everyday story, this story have more unpredictability in it and that fascinates me. By adding two introduction thinking bubble to the character, the story opens up to a lot of interpretation. The main character can be a serial killers waiting to murder the female (he is creating his alibi), he can be a crazy scientist that try to do different evil human experiment (the organs in the fridge) or he can be a secret agent that have to go on a mission and cannot wait to go back to his lover who is waiting for him. It did not shows everything in the storyline so that the reader can have their own interpretation to the story and bring imagination to the reader by not showing everything and they can decide how the story goes afterward.

           The last reason is the image of the comic, it created a mysterious feeling by not showing any face and just the hands of the main character and the organs in the fridge. In this way, it instantly shows a film-noir feel which is good compare to some others work have to do so much change and require reader to have a lot of thinking to get the idea of the comic.