Custom «The Photography» Essay Paper Sample

Over time, art has continued to evolve from paintings made in caves to the current use of photography and live images. Art can be depicted in many forms and thus used to communicate a wide range of information faster and better than simple language. Artistic tools and styles are used by their creators to portray common as well as dangerous scenarios. The essay you are just about to read exposes the use of modern photography and video imaging to in reflecting all seasoned themes that affect society in dynamic ways. The essay compares and contrasts two pieces of art created to depict both daring and dangerous scenes that would not have been exposed in any other form of communication. The two pieces, a story about Braddock in Campaign for Braddock Hospital by Toya Ruby Frazier and Ready to Work Campaign for Levi’s by Wieden & Kennedy depict just what art can do.

History of Photography

Frazier is a young lady, who was born in 1982. She currently works as a curator and teacher of photography in New Brunswick at a school called MasonGrossSchool of the Arts at Rutgers. She is an internationally known artist featuring in a number of international shows. Her passion for photography has its genesis in her childhood when she took photographs of her family and loved ones, which continued to influence her art.

Frasier’s piece of work is rather daring owing to the fact that she is critical about political events. Frasier observes development and makes a call to exercise a critical eye. Her art mainly developed through politically motivated photography. Some of the photographs, featuring in her art, include those by Dorothea Lange and Lewis Hine and have political inclination. The use of political images to criticize social and economic setups makes her piece of art an attractive collision with other sectors and earns her infamous reputation among politicians – “the untouchables”. Her art is critical about the ruins in Braddock and she feels that somebody must be responsible for such misdeeds. She is not amused by America as a whole and she points fingers at the whole system of governance without just concentrating on Braddock. She uses documentaries of the 1930s to stage a campaign that would save the town’s own hospital. She is also unhappy with the “greedy opportunists” calling for progress at the expense of other priorities.

The Levi campaign, on the other hand, is a dangerous endeavor aimed at preparing people for change. The artists depict a future that has yet to be built, unaware of the oppositions that are likely to come up along the way. The symbolism of the money that they were willing to pay goes further to expose their willingness to engage in dangerous confrontations, which appear likely to emerge along the way. This piece of art portrays the strong-hearted citizens who were prepared to take risks on behalf of the people in the city. The extent of risks they were willing to take makes their endeavor a dangerous adventure. Another aspect making this endeavor dangerous is the invitation it makes for Americans of the West to carry on the duty of reconstructing the town. The art skips significant details in their campaign and they seem unaware of the cost the people would have to pay to the “pioneers” alluded to by the art.

The two pieces of art are a depiction of the observations made in the Orvell. The two arts are developed by the use of camera and aimed at communicating varied information to the audience. On the one hand, the artists represent historical events, towns, and their lives and also have helped reconstruct a memory of the past. Indeed, as observed by the Orvell, by depicting the ruins of town and photography of the 1930s, the artists manage to create an image of the past in the eyes of the audience. On the other hand, the images depicted are not adequate for all events that took place neither in the past nor in the lives of the writers. The Levi campaign further enhances the understanding. The photographs used in this campaign are merely a creation of what the future would hold. The art is a call to the future, portraying little about the past and the present. Such images cannot be relied on to analyze people’s lives, neither can they speak about the past. Levi’s campaign presents the clothes images such as corduroys jeans, jackets, and shirts, which barely speak about the past of Braddock.

The two pieces of work are a representation of two different views regarding the same town. Frazier’s work, on the one hand, is pessimistic and critical about the ordeal. Levi’s campaign, on the other hand, is optimistic bringing about an icon of hope for people. Levi’s campaign is a message of hope, a call for hard work and encouragement to face the future with optimism. The risk presented by Wieden’s and Kennedy’s work is worth taking. It speaks of reconstruction of the industrial sector. The art is a foreshadow of better things, portraying images of a beautiful city with self-driven, loving, and hardworking citizens. This art positively influences the minds of those currently in despair with a promise for better days in the future. The audience of this art is persuaded to believe that all is well and the future holds better days for them. Whether such calls are made with good motive or not, the audience cannot tell.

Frazier is critical about the whole ordeal. She feels that the destruction of social amenities was instigated by political setups. She is pessimistic about the whole economic setup as she feels that Braddock is a part of a bigger, global crisis, whereby she is not positive about any likely improvement in the ruins of the town. Frazier uses a political approach criticizing historical events, such as social injustices and the crushing of the steel industry. She does not offer any solution for the future and her work has no indication of what the society must do to get over what has already taken place. In addition, her work is fearless in pointing at weaknesses, as she exposes the untouchables as responsible for the new social injustice, the collapse of the town hospital. To her, the call to hard work is a portrayal of hypocrisy; she exposes underlying issues and spares no effort in challenging the society to reject deception. Her pessimism helps the audience identify weaknesses in governance.

The art by Wieden & Kennedy revises the history of Braddock by portraying unique artistic images. The fine art of modeling and craftwork represents a society with a long history in textile and metalwork. The artists depict authentic images of waistbands, fine leather, fabrics, decorated with fine details, steel and brass artworks that could have seen more than a century of development. The art uses the term pioneer to allude to the American West. The art perceives the Americans to have had a longer history – that is what Levi’s campaign was aimed at achieving. The word pioneer is used to describe a people whose history had developed with regard to the steel and textile industry. The Western Americans would lead the re-construction of Levi workshops, doing what they had already achieved back at their homes.