Lessons.

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I wanted this blog post to be completely about the visual rather than the text. I think the title of the the blog post is just enough text to guide readers to think about what I was going for with my choice of pictures. After our discussion in class, I decided that pictures alone get people to think about a "story" on a deeper level; however, the "story" that people come away with will be different. So the question remains, does the author want to make sure a "story" is understood in a specific manner, or is it alright for the audience to create different stories based on their personal understanding. As Berger mentioned, photos tell facts, not meaning. The audience is left to decide the meaning.

In my visual blog posting, I decided to give the title "Lessons" to give the reader the idea that the posting would be regarding lessons. I placed pictures of young children learning to play hockey on the left, while pictures on the right were adults, for the most part, in adult situations. I thought this was a good example of Rose's belief that photographs express social implications. The beginning of the post starts with a single child's face which I thought captured the look of childhood innocence. The following few pictures dealt with the similarities between what the kids learn in a young athletic atmosphere and actual life situations that they often face in the future. The photos describe life lessons that begin somewhat hard with implications of war, hard economic times, and conflict. The photos end with other lessons in life which deal with teamwork, friendship, hope, goals, and family. The last picture is another single child with an innocent smile on his face. I put them in the order of difficult to more loving/good issues because I think human nature always grasps for that glimmer of hope that may be far off in the distance, but it is possible to reach. People run into problems, meet people who help or hurt them, sometimes they reach their goals and sometimes they don't, but there is always hope. Lessons at a young age prepare kids for the issues they may face in the future. I believe it's very important, if not necessary, to get kids involved in group activities and sports at a young age in order to give them some groundwork on how to deal with issues in their future.

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All photos with kids playing hockey were taken by my camera during Learn to Play hockey classes in which I am an instructor.
The other photos can be found at:

• http://www.jcolen.com/Bridge%20in%20Fog%201b%20B&W%20for%20Web.jpg
  

• http://johnfenzel.typepad.com/john_fenzels_blog/images/2007/10/21/great_depression_photograph.gif

• http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1024/1485248039_fcd5a27d07.jpg

• http://armyboyz.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/rough-soldier.jpg