Module 6: Blog Reviews

Blog #1: Amy Newton
Let me first say two things; one, I dislike reviewing other people's work, and two, I was lucky enough to have to review my sister's blog found here. She has always been a very good writer and a frequent reviewer and analyzer of various media, so reading her entries was fun for me; we generally like to snoop on each others assignments anyway.

I thought her elements matched pretty well in each of her photos. While her thematic choice was clever and convenient, I feel it kind of restricted her in some ways. Still, she was inventive and clearly inspired by the assignment so I can't knock her on that. While some of her images obviously had other elements in them (texture being almost unavoidable in any photo), I felt her photos were focused on the elements they were meant to focus on. 

Amy and I both chose Niagara as a piece that related to us, and for the same reasons. I find that funny in some ways; we went to the museum together, but we did our assignments and photos separately, yet we came up with the same piece for the same reason. Just goes to show the family traits I guess.

Since we went to the gallery together, we actually got to talk about the pieces as we were viewing them. So, I don't think I could say that she picked any that got my interest more than while we were there. Walking Soldier (1917), by Alexander Archipenko caught my attention at the museum, but for a different reason; I just think its odd looking and weird. Call me narrow-minded if you must, but I just don't see a person in it; in fact, I'm not really sure what I see in it. 

Blog #2 Amber Racette

This is why I dislike these projects; the need to be polite overrides the desire to be brutally honest. I thought her photo choices were appropriate, none were mismatched or unbelievable. However, I really felt like she didn't put any effort into the post about the project. Not that she needed to go in depth and individualize like Amy, but I wish there was something there that was interesting to read.

I'm convinced she didn't go t the Albright Knox; I've been there numerous times and have never seen those pieces ever, any of them. Not that that is a bad thing, quite the contrary; but I wish she again, put more information into her post. There aren't even titles on her blog posts, which made finding and commenting on her posts very difficult.

All of her selected images piqued my interest, because I've never seen any of them. Which is why I really want to know where she went, so I could see these beautiful works for myself.

As I said before, and will say again; I really dislike having to review peer works. Even in the discussion forums, where I try to be as uplifting and encouraging as possible, I find it frustrating to have to pull meaning out of someone else's opinion; and that's only after I figure out if they actually followed the prompt or not. Personally, I find it embarrassing and anxiety producing to have my work viewed by my peers. It isn't that I think I do poorly, it's that I don't want to have to cater to an audience; especially in my reflections, which I have tried very hard to be honest in. All of this "blogging" is nerve wracking for me as it is. I don't have a large interest in socializing to begin with, and less so on the internet, so sticking my opinion out there is just asking for trouble in my opinion. I don't feel like I get anything out of it either; I'm sure that makes me a little strange for a 26 year old nowadays, but its just not my thing.

As I said before, I don't like the idea of people even seeing my work, so reading the comments was kind of scary. At least I knew my sister was going to read mine, which made me feel better because she always has such helpful things to say. The other comments weren't awful, very nice things were said, but I didn't feel like they thought much about it. It was more "I did this too!" and that was all. But its all I ever expect from assignments like these, so I'm not really surprised.