Reading Response, Week 5

This week I really enjoyed viewing the various slideshows Marin linked us. I didn't view all of them - there seemed to be about sixty - but I'll probably be working on seeing them all over the next couple of weeks, they were so enjoyable. The use of black and white photos was striking - illustrating the story of a tuxedo-purveyor (that's probably not his proper title, but we'll go with it) with such lack of color seemed like a perfect choice. For most stories, this choice worked well, though for others - such as the story of the taxidermist - I felt color photos could have been used to better effect. I also loved the stories that were told - the people had such character. However, it was a little strange to watch the slideshow and then be presented with a little snippet of text providing more background on the person - sometimes, but not often, background that I wanted to learn about the person in the slideshow itself. This probably wasn't included in the show itself because it wasn't relevant to the story being told, and perhaps others didn't have this problem because as I have just discovered, you can view this 'About' at anytime, even previous to the show. A minor point.

The slideshows seem so simple - a person tells their story, a photojournalist snaps some photos of the scenery, and voila! you've got the product. But so much work must go on behind the scenes, work in finding the right person, getting their story out of them, taking the right photos, let alone editing it all together in such a harmonious way. I hope that my final project will be a fraction of what these slideshows are.

Moving on to Kristof. His topics were always interesting, for which I admire him. He also always provides resolution to his stories, general as some of his conclusions may be. His stories are concise and to the point, providing a perfect snapshot of whatever his opinions may be. However, for whatever reason I found his voice somewhat bland. He definitely has a voice in his pieces, but the way that he puts things/phrases things is just so...normal. I can't think of a better way to describe it. Doesn't mean his writing is boring, but it doesn't give me a sense of mood or tone so much, I suppose. I was interested in reading more about a couple of the subjects he wrote about - the American prostitution story in particular could have been so much of a bigger piece, particularly having recently read Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's in-depth piece, "Trina and Trina," but for what it was I liked it. Overall I enjoyed Kristof as a writer but would like to read more of his long-form work.