WP1: Statement of Purpose

The main purpose of my project is to find insight in the argument of “Sitting on Rail” and to share the insight that I have found. Not only should the project share what was found, it should also explain how I found that and why I see the certain arguments in the photo. While describing the rhetorical techniques and appeals in the photo, I will need to use rhetorical techniques and appeals in my project, for my argument. This will keep my audience interested and my argument moving.

The project will be posted online, on this blog. That means the people who see it will be looking at it online. This is good because it is easier to use multimedia elements which can add to my argument as another way of displaying the ideas or concepts. It also means that I need to be sure to have good paragraph breaking so all the words do not run together on the screen.

By having this project online it opens up my audience. My main audience will be my teacher and classmates. But also, my audience should include future classmates and anyone who stumbles on the blog via Google or casual browsing. Fellow classmates and future classmates would be working on similar projects while reading through mine. I need to have unique ideas, to keep them interested in it, and need to explain my ideas clearly. This will give them ideas for their own project and to understand mine as well. My teacher will be reading this in the midst of reading multiple similar projects. To keep him interested I need to again be unique like stated before, but show thorough insight into the photographs argument. I have to be confident in what I see as the argument in “Sitting on Rail” and in describing why that is the argument of the photo.

The broad audience of anyone with access to the internet will be more difficult to keep in mind. Most likely if they find the project by a search engine, they are looking for a topic that I am covering in my paper. This means they most likely will be interested, but they will not know what we discuss in class or read in the book. Keeping this in mind, I need to describe these things clearly, or provide links that offer a description. My responsibilities to all of my audience is to teach them the argumentation of “Sitting on Rail”, explain the techniques and conclusions of the argument, and to brainstorm many ideas that different people could have about the argument and address them, to make the whole audience feel included.

The worries I need to keep in mind when constructing this project include being too general, speaking like monotone, making assumptions, and getting off topic. To avoid being too general I need to focus on explaining every idea I have, and showing where and how it came about. In order to avoid speaking like monotone, I need to remember to keep the voice professional, but to add my own voice as well. I do not want to make assumptions about what the audience does or does not know when speaking about photography and argumentation techniques. Although I will not want to describe all the techniques thoroughly, by using contexts that give clear ideas of what they could be or providing links to information would be ideal. While writing the project, I should keep in mind the main purpose I stated above and continuously check to see if what I am writing is supporting my main purpose.

The best possible outcome of this project would be to inspire the audience. That could be to inspire them to take photographs to capture arguments they want to make. Or it could be to inspire them to look at photographs and find arguments in them. It could even be to inspire them to find an additional argument in the photograph I have chosen. If this is accomplished I would be proud of the project and the knowledge I have shared with my audience. It will also make me proud if I can expand this photographs recognition, because it is a special photograph with an important argument to make.

Prewriting Assignment 3

The Belgians gave the Rwandan colonials cards according to their ethnicity. Although the Hutus and the Tutsis were very similar, the Belgians considered the Tutsis superior to the Hutus even though they were the minority. This is when the tension between the two began. Juvenal Habyarimana was the Hutu president of Rwanda leading up to 1994. The economy of Rwanda was very desperate. The Tutsi refugees in Uganda, supported by some moderate Hutus, were putting together the RPF, Rwanda Patriotic Front, to overthrow Juvenal Habyarimana take back the Rwandan land they believed they deserved. In April of 1994, Juvenal Habyarimana died when his plane was shot down. The Hutus immediately blamed the RPF leader, Paul Kagame. This began the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

In only one hundred days, eight hundred thousand Rwandans were killed. The radical Hutus were killing every Tutsi, or moderate Hutu they believed to be in support of the RPF, they could find. They even forced some Hutus to kill their neighboring Tutsis, threatening their own death if they did not comply. The Hutu forces collaborated in Kigali, so in July of 1994 when the RPF captured Kigali, the Hutu forces fell apart and a cease fire was declared. This ended the massacre, but not the struggle.

When the RPF seemed to have the victory, many Hutus fled to what is now the Dominican Republic of Congo. The government in Rwanda was initially led by a Hutu with Paul Kagame as his deputy, but the Hutu did not last long. He was put into jail for "inciting ethnic violence". To this day, Rwanda is led by Paul Kagame of the RPF and continue to struggle with the Kutus forces in the Dominican Republic of Congo. BBC News states that "The world's largest peacekeeping force has been unable to end the fighting".

The photograph "Sitting on Rail" was taken in Rwanda in 2001. The boy who took the photograph, Musa, would have been three years old at the time of the genocide. This struggle has been surrounding him, and the boys in the pictures, all of their lives. Despite the Tutsi and Hutu struggle, Rwanda has always struggled economically. For example, in June of 2006 David Kubaye wrote that they were just beginning to insert a sewage system.

From the information given at the site of the photograph, I know that Musa arrived at the orphanage in 1997. Knowing how the Rwandan past and Musa's personal past must be affecting him makes the gray sky in the photograph seem even more dooming. I originally thought this picture was taking to inspire sympathy, not understanding, and I think the background supports that even more. Musa must know that we cannot understand what he has been through, so he captures the picture not to inspire pity, as he does not show the faces, but to inspire sympathy. This sympathy should inspire people to help in Rwanda. If he was trying to have the viewers pity them, or feel guilty for the lack of help given to Rwanda, he would have shown the faces of the kids, and not had the vectors of attention directed away from the viewers and into the gray sky. In the photograph, he is showing the struggle that they face every day.

Work Cited

Kabuye, David. "Rwanda: today." Web log post. Rwandanstories. John Steward and David Fullerton, 2006. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. .

"Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened." BBC News. BBC MMX, 18 Dec. 2008. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. .

WP1: Pre-writing Assignment 2

"Sitting on Rail" is arranged so the viewers are positioned behind the boys and the rail. The vectors of attention are away from us, pointed out into the gray skies and the water. This makes the viewer feel not as if they are involved in the picture but that they are observing the picture. The kids faces are not interacting with the audience, you cannot see them at all. I think this appeal to logos, having the vectors of attention pointed away, makes an argument that we viewers cannot be involved in the picture because we cannot imagine what those kids are going through in Rwanda. Viewing the boys slumped over on the railing, looking to the gray sky, is a strong appeal to pathos. It makes the viewers feel sympathetic toward those boys. We are looking on because we cannot possibly understand, but that leaves us to feel sympathetic.

He took the picture at an angle that makes the railing and sky look as if they must go on forever. The focus is on the sky, due to the vectors of attention as stated above. These both could be appeals to ethos. If the gray sky is a symbol of the hard times they are going through in this child's life, he could view it with no end in sight. So, he took the picture to match his feelings, that the gray sky could go on forever. He cropped it to include a variety of boys, similarly having to go through the difficulties he is.

The lighting is about half way between light and dark. It is light enough that the viewers can see everything, but the sky is the only thing light enough to see really clearly. Where the boys are standing is a bit darker, not as easy to clearly see them, their clothing, or the objects they have with them. Taking this picture in this lighting, could be an appeal to logos, putting the focus more on the sky. It is the most lit thing in the picture.

The coloration adds to the overall appeal to pathos in this photograph. Their clothing are hues of tan, green, and red. Although they are highly saturated, the are not bright. The green and red hues are dark colors. It draws on that sympathetic emotion because it keeps with the dreary mood. Because their faces are pointed away, their clothes is what makes them unique from one to another. Yet, they are all dark colors that bring about sad or bored moods. On top of the coloration in their clothing the surrounding area is also made up of gray hues. Again, it is highly saturated, but do to the hue itself it is not vibrant. Gray is often characterized with sadness, or pain. The water could have been blue, or green, but it is also gray. Looking at this photo we get the feeling of sadness but because we are not involved in the photo, it is like the sadness belongs to the boys. That leaves the audience to feel sympathy.

Weekly Blog Post 8

The boys in this picture may not know each other personally or very well, but they all have a lot in common. They come from the same community, dealing struggle within that community. You can see the community's struggle by looking at the boys. I see it in their clothes and shoes. They have average clothes. It does not look particularly torn but none of it looks anything near designer, just average street clothes. The most effective to me is their sandals or no shoes. This is popular in communities that are not as well off and in that part of the world. By looking at them from behind, you can not see their faces, what makes a person most unique from one to the other. From behind they all look very similar. Although ever person, besides identical twins, look a little different from this angle, you can't tell them apart. This adds to them being all being like brothers from their community.

Most likely the two groups of three do know each other more than just by their community, possibly as friends or as brothers. Though you can not necessarily tell if they are talking, it does not appear that they are talking to each other. I assume that because they are all looking out past the railing and not a single one is looking at another person. For boys at this age to be around other boys they know as friends or brothers and not be talking must mean they have a lot running through their mind. It makes me sad to think of kids at that age with so many burdens and so many worries. It is typical to see kids having fun, but not a single one looks like they are having fun in this picture.

Showing the boys slouched and resting their heads on their arms or on the rails shows them having the emotions of being tired, disappointed, or distraught. Showing the kid walking to join them makes me think of all the other kids around that are feeling as they do, like more and more could just keep walking into the picture. The vector of attention is toward mainly the sky and somewhat to the water or peninsula. The sky mirrors the attitude of boys, being gray, cloudy and dull. The water is also gray, not the beautiful green or blue color. It does not seem to be too rough but it is not completely calm either. The peninsula off to the distance could be their village or a village close to theirs, either way it is shadowed with the clouds overhead. The angle in which he took the picture adds to this effect too. Because it is at an angle and not straight on the gray sky and long railing look as if they go on forever. It makes me feel as if it represents how they are feeling, that the rough times are going to be their forever. I found myself staring at the picture determined to find some sun peeking through to show some hope, but there is no sun. This picture makes me feel sympathy for these kids and their families.

Weekly Blog Post 7

I have never been too involved with photography, just taking a few pictures on my digital camera and being in various pictures, but never knowing the techniques or the vocabulary. I never considered myself a very "artsy" person so I did not take the classes offered in my high school. My parents also were not too involved in photography either just basic pictures at events or vacations. Although I have never taken the classes or been too concerned with all the technicalities I can find some photographs breathtaking. I enjoy looking at them to see what friends or family have been up to and I love looking at scenery pictures. The absolutely gorgeous scenery pictures have the power of making me dream about how I wish I was there, or could have scene that beautiful sight. So, I guess in some ways I was interested in it, but not overly, just as a small way to pass time and brighten my mood.

I am a little concerned because I don't know how exposure, different lenses, or other options in photography work or what effects they have. Since I have only taken basic pictures making what I wanted to capture straight, front, and center, I am slightly worried that I will not be able to look at the photographs and necessarily know what the photography was trying to capture, or the point they were trying to make. However, after reading chapter 11 I now understand simple differences like vectors of attention and framing. I understood what the book was saying and the effects they were pointing out. It was even a little interesting to me the different arguments they could find in a photo essay or even one photograph. It is slightly unnerving to know that I will be studying and writing on things that I do not have much background knowledge in, so I will only know the basics, but at the same time it is exciting. What I learned so far in chapter 11 did make sense, was interesting to me, and gave me something to think about and consider when looking at different photographs.