Period 4 -- Critical Analysis #3

11/6/2019

Today you will be writing about this image by artist Zora Murff, which is from his series titled Corrections. Your analysis must be 4 paragraphs, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. Remember to post your analysis as a comment to the blog post that corresponds to your class. If you post your analysis to the wrong class's post, it will not be graded.

Below is a project statement written by Murff about his body of work, Corrections:
From 2012 to 2015, I worked as a Tracker for Linn County Juvenile Detention and Diversion Services in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As a Tracker, I provided services to youths who were convicted of crimes, adjudicated, and subsequently ordered to complete probation. Juveniles in my charge were asked to comply with services which may include: electronic monitoring, therapies, drug screening, and community service; it was my responsibility to have continual contact with them to ensure these expectations are met.

Tracking and other similar community-based services are being increasingly used as an alternative to detention facilities. These services, which allow juveniles to stay in their homes, show a higher rate of success than strict incarceration. Although community-based services are built to foster a collaborative relationship between juveniles and service providers, attaining the actualization of teamwork becomes problematic when juveniles feel that they have done nothing wrong, are victims of circumstance, or do not fully understand why they have committed a crime. The system has been put in place to provide rehabilitation, but it is far from being a straightforward process. Many influences outside of the youths' control such as education, socioeconomic status, and race all play a role in whether or not a youth reoffends - all of these factors possessing the propensity to lead them to extended periods of incarceration in the juvenile system or to involvement with the criminal justice system as an adult.

By reconsidering the role that I played in the lives of the kids I worked with, I began to acknowledge the burden that comes with tasking young men and women with continued complicity. My stance as a consequence kept our relationships in a state of flux ranging from stable to tenuous – a constant motion mirroring the discord that develops between the system's intentions and outcomes. Through employing ideas of anonymity, voyeurism, and introspection, Corrections is an examination of youth experience in the system, the role images play in defining someone who is deemed a criminal, and how the concepts of privacy and control may affect their future.

Refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

Describe specifics.
Describe form.
Describe the content.
Evaluate the image

Your analyses will be graded on:

meeting minimum length requirements
depth of organization
evaluation of the content
grammar/punctuation

George Welch

11/6/2019 07:15:02 am

This image is of a teen looking away from the camera to look at a football field. It doesn’t have a lot of light but it also doesn't have a lot of darks shadows. But on the kid’s ankle, he does look like he has a tracker. It also looks like its in a poorer part of the city. The track is made of gravel and the football field’s uprights and grass look older.

The picture doesn’t seem to be using the rule of thirds, the subject is in the middle of the photograph. But there is extra space in the image. The area around where he’s standing is still in focus. But it blurs out one it gets behind him. Also, it doesn’t look like the image is cropping out anything.

To me, there is a story that is being told in this image. I see it as a metaphor of this kid looking back on his life. On his ankle he has a tracker, so he doesn’t have a ton of control over his life now. The track represents his life, gravel and bumpy. And the field goal is the event that got him here, looking back on it.

I like the image. I think it works to show that the kids in the juvie system are people too. I think it also shows what these kids have to go through being labeled as a criminal. How they have to live with their life, possibly, forever changed. I think this image was successful.

nathan bond

11/7/2019 07:23:52 pm

There is a black guy with black hair standing by a football field on the part that’s for track. He has a very short haircut. He’s wearing a black tank top with print on it that we cannot see. He’s wearing black shorts and socks with sandals. The socks are white and the sandals are black. He has a green bracelet on and has an ankle tracker.

This man is looking back at the football field that is behind him. Maybe the football field symbolizes his old life before jail. Maybe this guy was a star football player who threw his life away. The grass behind him is green and there is a white score thing that players throw the ball through. There are green big trees behind it and behind the trees are blurred houses.

The background colors are red, green, and white these are all bright colors which makes a bright image. The colors in the focused part of the image (the man) is black. The lines are: first you see the man, then you see the fork thing that football players kick the ball in, which leads to trees and those trees lead you to see the houses in the back. The subject doesn’t fill the frame, there is extra space and that extra space helps us to see symbolism in the photo. There is no use of the rule of thirds because the subject is in the middle.

There is positive space all the way up to where the grass ends by the trees so, there is negative in the top part of the photo and positive space in the bottom. The image is interesting because it makes the viewer wonder why he’s looking back at a football field. This image is meant to make you look at it twice to see that these people aren’t just criminals, but are actual people with feelings, so it does challenge beliefs. I don’t dislike this image but I also don’t exactly like it. It’s too vague after you realize it’s supposed to be a man looking back at his old life.

Zac Isaac

11/6/2019 10:52:09 am

Zac Isaac
Class blog
This image of a boy in a field. He is looking away at something in the distance. The photo is bright so you can see everything. Some objects in the photo are a football upright, grass, and a track around the football field. There is some tracker on the boys foot.

In the photo, the rules of thirds is being used. The person is right beside the lines that you would use for the rule of thirds. The background is blurred so you can focus on the person. The image is balanced nicely. The subject does not fill the image. He fills up the middle.

Some ideas that are in the photo are how the person is looking back like he is looking at his past. The artist makes these photos to show how some people are chained to something. This photo is noteworthy. There is a story being told with the person in the image. The person who took the photo did a great job.

I like it. It is really touching. I really like the photo, because it shows a clear story in the photo. I think it is successful This is a great photo.

Garrett Greiner

11/6/2019 07:06:03 pm

This image was taken by Zora Murff. The subject of the image seems to be a teenage boy. He is standing on what appears to be a track that runs around a football field. He appears to be looking back at the field goal. The subject has a monitor or some electronic device strapped to his ankle, which demonstrates that the subject has most likely done something wrong. Other than the device, he looks like a normal kid. There are some trees in the background, and you can see houses behind the trees.

The Rule of Thirds is not being used in this image, as the subject is centered in the frame. The photographer used a shallow depth of field. We can tell because the subject is in focus but the rest of the frame is out of focus. The line created where the track and field meet draws your attention from the foreground to the background nicely. You can see where the track curves in the background as well, and that draws your attention from the left side of the image to the right side of the image. Not much is cut off in this image. The only thing that really got cut off was a small part of a tree. I think it is not really symmetrical in terms of color. The right side of the image has a lot more green than the left side does (in the foreground/middle ground). The background is pretty balanced though.

The intention behind this image is to show that juveniles are normal people too. The artist had personal experience, as his brother was wrongly convicted of a crime when he was a teenager. The artist realized that these kids aren’t criminals, and he wants to show that. This image reminds me of the track I used to practice on during my middle school track and field practices. The image challenges my assumptions about juveniles and other criminals, as this image shows a different side to these people.

I like this image, as it is simple and it is just appealing to me. I think it is successful because the photo shows that these juveniles are just like normal kids. I really like the setting of the image. I like all of the colors in the image, and it just looks really nice to look at. When I look at the image I feel very calm.

dana salinas

11/6/2019 09:00:35 pm

Zora Murff’s photograph is very powerful I believe. I think this is so merely on the work I know he does and what he does for young adults in the criminal system. I think that it’s very helpful for him to show the sides of the kids trapped in it because not many people know that there are different stories behind each person’s hardships. By Murff doing a series of photos based on the criminal system and injustices, he is able to achieve so much more and teach the audience something through it.
In the photograph, there is an adolescent, it seems, who is looking back at a football field. What impacted me is the tracker that he has on his ankle. The young man isn’t even trying to hide it away from the public or the photograph. It is right there, able to be seen. He is wearing very comfortable clothing as if he were at his house or had just woken up. He also has sandals on his feet which is interesting because he is outside, at a field, where houses surround it. It makes the public think that he lives near by based on his shoes. If he lived further away, he’d be wearing tennis shoes or just more comfortable shoe ware to walk for a longer amount of time and or distance. This might also mean that because of he has the ankle tracker, he can’t really go further than the field where he is at.
There are light colors all around the photograph and nothing really seems darkened. I think that the artist did this on purpose so that the public would not affiliate the darkened scene with crime or anything bad for that matter. I think that the artist wanted us to think that there is a brighter side to things and that they are just people that have made mistakes. The artist clearly wanted to leave some space in the background while still focusing on the boy. He intended us to see the houses and the field to maybe portray how he was free at the moment but at the same time, he was trapped. He just couldn’t leave and grab different pair of shoes for a longer journey because he’d sometime have to come back due to the tracker. This image is very pleasing to look at because there’s really a lot of more information in it than just what we see at first hand. The image and the subject are very well centered and symmetrical because the subject is centered and the frame is very clear.
The whole purpose of this image was to portray different emotions and ideas. Murff wanted to tell the audience the story of a boy in the criminal system and the different hardships that come with it. Based on the colors, I also believe that he also wanted to contrast how there is a calmer side to things maybe after they have done something terrible or something that has gotten them into deeper trouble. The subject is looking back maybe at the field or at the houses; maybe even both. He looks back I believe because it seems more calm. The houses, trees and football field seem more calm and even contrast the ankle bracelet because you wouldn’t expect someone to be wearing an ankle tracker just out in the open. You’d maybe expect them to cover it up. The subject however does not.
I think that this is one of my favorite images by far, or maybe I just believe that because I know deeper background and more information about the artist and subjects. I believe that the criminal justice is very unfair and I think that it’s really admiring that someone is bold and creative enough as to take pictures to show the true feelings behind it all. I think that this is a very successful image because even though there are no words, the audience gets a sense of understanding and even compassion towards the teens.

MJ Ervin

11/7/2019 09:08:42 am

In this image, this is an image of a guy who is looking back and not at the camera while he is standing on a track. He does have a thing on his foot too. The colors are very chill and darkish they aren't colorful colors but they are neutral colors. The lighting kind of like a gloomy sad nice calm not so bright morning. The image includes a guys standing in the center of the frame wearing slides and he is looking away from the camera so you cant see his face. Their is a football post and some trees and buildings in the background. Nothing is really happening in this image other then the guy looking away from the camera who probably stopped and took a break from running.

I think the image is pleasing to look at, it doesn't have colors popping out everywhere it's mainly just calm and pleasing to the eye. The rule of thirds is not being used in this image it is a symmetrical image. The point of view is a like a front/side profile but you don't see his face because of his head being turned but he is facing forward while the camera is facing a little to the left of him. Depth of field is being used in this image he is in focus but the buildings and trees are not in focus. I would say the image is framed but it isn't really framed that much though. The image is symmetrical and balanced it isn't tilted or anything. No the subject does not fill the whole screen there's a lot of space filled with other things then the subject. There is probably not much that would have made the image more interesting that was cut off. There is not a lot of negative or positive space in this image.

In the image he seems like he is prison and maybe is looking back because he wants his old life back and doesn't want to have the life he has right now. Maybe the person who took this wanted to show life in prison and how they live but also how all people who are in prison aren't how they seem to be and that not all of them are bad people. This image doesn't remind me of anything but it kinda gives out a vibe. I think the image is interesting because of how the person is feeling because of his body language. He could either be running and hears a sound or he could be looking back to show his past life and wanting his old life back.

I like the image it is chill and gives a chill vibe. The colors aren't too bright and colorful they are very subtle and calm. This is a nice image and makes me think about what is actually going on in the photo

Elise Miles

11/7/2019 09:49:18 am

The image is of a juvenile kid on a track field looking in the distance. The colors in the image are black, lots of green, white, and red. The lighting in the image is really bright, as there is a lot of white. There is one person in the middle of the image, in the background there is a football goal and houses. In the image the boy is just standing there looking out, you can’t see his face.

The image is not using the rule of thirds in that the subject is standing in the center of the image. The point of view is from somebody looking at the boy straight on. The depth of field is very shallow as in everything except the boy and the ground around him is blurred. The focal point is the boy and the image is not framed. The lines are the track going to the boy in the background. The subject does not fill the space, there is a lot of space around him. The edge of the image is the field and the houses around the boy.

The theme of the image is the juvenile prison. The story behind the image is that the boy is in juve and he is probably looking out at the field thinking about what his life could’ve been if he wasn’t involved with crime. The artist made this image to show people that kids in juve aren’t just criminals, they are more than that. The image reminds me of going into the poor area of San Antonio seeing people who are less fortunate than me. This image makes me more aware of my surroundings and makes me more grateful. The image is interesting in that is tells a story.

I like it because the boy seems to be very thoughtful. The photo is definitely successful because everything is balanced and good.

Max

11/7/2019 03:59:37 pm

This image by Zora Murff is that of a man who knows what he’s doing. He photographed this teen, looking back at what is probably what he should have done in the past, but was unable to do them because of the mistakes he made then. The man is wearing an ankle tracker outside of the house. Which is unusual because of the rules of the tracker. His face is not showing, but only for anonymity and effect. The lighting in the scene is pretty cool, it’s sort of overcast and rainy, giving the sad feeling to the atmosphere.

There’s a normal point of view. But what really caught my eye was the really blurry background, and it makes it seem as if what’s behind the subject isn’t really clear to him. The Rule of Thirds is quite strong here. The subject is just slightly off-centre to the point where it would catch someone’s eye. Not to mention the lines sort of directing you to the subject, forcing you to look at him.

The story here is really great, Murff made this series of images because he worked as a tracker for the Juvenile Detention center for three years. During his time there, he made anonymous portraits of the kids he worked with. The theme of the series was “Corrections” basically a glimpse into the lives of kids in juvenile detention. The reason why he made the series was because when he was a kid, his brother was found falsely guilty of forcing a kid to brand himself with a paperclip, despite the fact that Murff witnessed it all.

I actually really love the image, and I love the composition. I think that I would love to see more in the future from Murff as well. He is a very successful artist, and I feel that more would be amazing in the future. Not to mention it’s a successful image, and really gets you thinking about what’s happening around us considering the children being falsely accused of crimes that they didn’t commit. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Ryan Shields

11/7/2019 04:16:49 pm

This is an image of a guy looking behind him while standing on a track. Some details are that he’s wearing socks with sandals and he's also got an ankle monitor. The colors are more neutral, the reds aren’t super red and the greens aren’t super green. The lighting is overcast. There’s not a lot of shadows and not a lot of highlights either. The picture is very neutral and very bleak possibly symbolizing that his life isn’t in a good place right now. Some objects in the image are the guy, the track, and an ankle monitor. Some things in the background are the field goal, and also some trees and houses. There’s not a whole lot going on in the image it’s just a guy looking back.
The image is pleasing to look at, there’s nothing atrocious. The rule of thirds is being used, making the image more interesting. The photographer took the image from the side of the guy. The focal point is shallow because it’s focusing on the guy, whose relatively up close. The image is not framed. The line that separates the track from the field directs your eye from the bottom right corner to the top left corner. The image is asymmetrical because although the guy is in the center, the field goal is only on the right side of him. The subject doesn’t fill the screen and there is extra space. The image doesn’t cut anything off.
Some themes and ideas in the image are that there are lots of more subtle colors and an overcast sky, suggesting that maybe life isn’t very good right now. He’s also looking back maybe looking back to better times. There is a story in the image. The image is about a kid who was put in the juvenile detention system. The artist made this image to help people see how the kids in the juvenile detention are just kids and you shouldn’t just see them as criminals. The image doesn’t really remind me of anything in particular and it doesn’t question any of my beliefs. I think the image is interesting because of what it’s trying to say.
I like the photograph because it’s not a bad picture and it conveys a good message. I think the photographer was successful because the image does what he’s trying to make it do.

diego saucedo

11/7/2019 06:44:56 pm

Zora Murff

In this picture you can see a teen looking back at the field goal posts in the background. The kid has a tracking device on his leg, which makes you think he did something wrong and went to a juvenile detention center. He’s also standing on the track that circles the football field which also makes you think he was an athlete before he was arrested.
On the far background you could see a bunch of houses facing the field.
The exposure is not too dark. The highlights are pretty bright because he’s outside in daylight. That seems to be the day is not sunny. You can see it's cloudy and also its some kind of sad mood. By sad mood I say, its “boring” the tones are gray and some of them are too bright.
The background looks great because I like the blur. The blur makes it look like if that doesn’t matter. but it might matter because he could not be looking at the field goal post but, he’s looking at a tree or a house. It makes it look like mysterious because you can infer something happen either on the field or in a house.
Also this picture tells a story, that story could be a good story or a bad story, some people can infer he was accused of something he didn’t do, or he just did something wrong.

Kurt

11/8/2019 11:51:30 am

The scene is of an african american teen who is on the track and is wearing an ankle bracelet. It is apparent to me that he is on probation and in some kind of institution. He is on a dirt track with a football field. Its using relatively warm colors but with gloomy overtones to portray the hopelessness of the situation and the bleak future of these kids. The sun is its main source of lighting although it seems there is some cloud coverage keeping it from being super sunny.

The image is very pleasing to the eye. The colors are great and it is a warm image that has a main focus while still drawing attention to the surrounding environment. The rule of thirds, however, is not being used. It is using a shallow depth of field. The subject while being the main attention does not really fill the frame in this picture. The image itself however is very balanced and symmetrical.

The image has tones of institutionalization as the boy in the image has a probationary bracelet on and looks to be trapped there. The theme is that we all are trapped by something whether it’s our own mental walls or by someone else in our life. It think the image tells us a story of a boy trapped in a world he can’t escape. It tells a story of the messed up United States prison and corrective system that does nothing to make the people in these corrective systems better and more apt to live in the real world where instead of stealing or making poor decisions they can make good decisions.

I liked the image. It was appealing to me and spoke to me in a lot of ways. It shed light into a bad corrective system.

Anaya Zachery

11/8/2019 08:47:20 pm

This image depicts a young man standing on the edge of a football field. He looks like every other teenager, with typical clothing of someone his age. In fact, the only real unusual thing is the tracking device around his ankle. The boy is turned backward toward the goal post behind him, so that we cannot see his face. The light that the photographer used for this photo is all natural lighting.

Upon first glance, it looks as though the photographer is not using the rule of thirds,because it is not being used to draw attention to the boy. However, when looking closer, it occurred to me that the subject of the photo may not actually be the boy, but the device strapped to his ankle. I also thought that Zora Murff may have wanted to draw the viewer’s attention to the goal post in the background, to sort of contrast the confinement of the tracking device with the freedom of sports. The image has a very shallow point of view, as the only thing really in focus is the young man standing on the field. There is not much negative space in the photo, as Murff was intentional about creating it and ensuring that the frame was filled.

We know that the photographer made this image as a means to give a voice to the juveniles involved in the system. I think that the image shows the freedom and leisure that the boy left behind when he was convicted of his crime. The tracking device, depicted in the foreground, is the restrictions and limitations placed on him. He is looking backward at the football field, something he probably used to enjoy but can no longer participate because of his situation. If someone viewing this image knew that this boy has been convicted of a crime, they might find it surprising to see other aspects of his life other than those involving whatever crime he was convicted of.

I really like this image because I think that it is important to give voices to other people, especially those who are not necessarily able to speak up on their own. Many times, people in similar situations as the boy depicted in the photo become a statistic, and aren’t really recognized for the uniqueness and individuality that everyone person possesses. The fact that Murff realized this and decided to show something that the boy maybe enjoyed doing before being put on probation sort of humanizes him and allows us to see a side that would not have even occurred to most people. I like the message that the image conveys, as well as the composition of it. Overall, I do think that this image was successful, and would definitely want to see more of Murff’s work in the future.

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Period 4 -- Critical Analysis #3

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