Medium Specificity

I chose to explore photography.  I started out by thinking what kind of a story did I want to tell.  What did I want to say with this exploration.  I decided to make it something personal so I picked a place that's familiar to me and says something.  But I also had authenticity on my mind because of the reading for next time. So I started to think about what is authentic.  What is real.  One of the affordances of photography is that you can capture an image, capture the way something is and have it as a record.  But, therein comes the question.  Is it real?  Does it capture the feeling, the reality of the objects or people?  So I took a picture and applied some filters and edits to it.  I did all the edits on my phone because I wanted to see how accessible the technology is.  Now the question is, which one is the real image?  Which one most accurately depicts what the day was like when I took the picture.  In an age where anyone can push buttons on a phone, record something and share it, is it real?  What can be done to a photograph?  The limitations of photography is that it doesn't capture feeling, change over time, auditory information, or other things.  It's limited to a moment in time, and it is editable.  So for a creator this can be an ideal medium. 

As an educator I would love to explore different artistic and creating questions and big ideas through these types of assignments.  Big Ideas like authenticity, integrity, or ownership could be easily explored through this.  I got myself to think and go further by asking myself questions such as what story I wanted to tell and why I was doing what I was doing.  Similar questions, and follow up conversations could help students go beyond just taking a picture.