Sherry’s Blog

My plan to help achieve the millenium development goals is trying to get more people aware about the amount of food waste that we create. Everyday, we all eat a minimum of three meals a day, sometimes even more. Of those meals, most people don’t finish or throw away everything that they don’t finish. Even during lunch time, for example, many of us don’t finish all of our food and we end up throwing it all away. Not only does this cause problems in the enviornment with too much waste, but the amount of food that we throw away could probably feed a malnurished child living in an LEDC for about a week.

To help create awareness about this issue, we should do campaigns to try and let more people in this school to get to know about this issue. Also, during lunch in the cafeteria, we should set up a small table next to where people throw all their uneaten food away, and if someone has thrown away food, we should ask for a small donation. Perhaps 10,000 for every plate that is unfinished and thrown away. It may not seem like a lot of money to us, but to them, it could be a lot. There are actually a lot of people in the world that live on less than $1 a day. This would not only help the many people living in LEDC’s, but it would also help to reduce the amount of waste that is produced.

Image Credit:

http://www.barnet.gov.uk/food-waste.jpg

Notes:

• Pictures with strong composition are better
• Greeks and Romans have been practicing the idea of composition from about 2,000 years before photography; you can tell by their architecture
• Definition of photographic composition: the pleasing selection and arrangement of subjects within the picture area
• Composition is an important part of contemporary architecture

The millennium development goals are:

• Eradicating poverty and hunger
• Achieving universal primary education
• Promoting gender equality
• Reducing child mortality
• Improving maternal health
• Combating disease
• Ensuring environmental sustainability
• Developing a global partnership

In this blog post, I will be focusing on ensuring enviromental sustainability. Ensuring enviromental sustainability basically means that we must use our resources wisely in order to achieve sustainable development. Poor people living in LEDC’s have mostly subsistence economies, and are the ones that are most affected by environmental degradation and natural disasters. MEDC’s especially have got to start using their resources wisely. Even though the countries make enviromental laws, big TNC’s always seem to somehow find ways around those rules. On top of that, nowadays, the TNC’s are going to LEDC’s where there is much fewer enviromental laws and more cheap labor. Now, they are also destroying the land and using up all the natural resources of other countries as well.

Some ways to try and achieve enviromental sustainability is for the governments all over the world, including LEDC’s to create very effective and good enviromental laws. Also, they should build more nature preserves and parks. Governments should try and switch more to alternative energy sources and not rely so much on only sources such as oil, gas, etc.

Picture Credit:

http://www.sthilda.ca/images/img_millenium-goals-hdr.gif

Question:

Why should we care about the poor people? They don’t affect us in any way, do they?

Answer/My Opinion:

Because what the world is, or should be, trying to achieve is sustainable development. Sustainable development includes all three different development ideologies – economic, environmental, and social. We are, and should be trying to develop including all three of those ideologies which means development where we include economic factors (trade, money,GNP), environmental factors (carbon emissions, deforestation rates), and social factors (literacy rate, infant mortality rate, life expectancy).

Another point is that if the gap between poor and rich gets too large, then its actually bad for the richer people as well. This is because  the MEDC’s trade and sell alot of their products to the LEDC’s. If the LEDC’s become so poor that they can’t even afford most things, not only will alot of them die, but the MEDC’s will lose alot of their customers and a big portion of profits. Especially since alot of families living in LEDC’s tend to have alot of children, so they probably purchase more.

Finally, we should care because it is the “morally right” thing to do. Even if everyone in the world is not religious, everyone still has a conscience and a small part of themselves that tell them what is “right” and what is “wrong” . Leaving all the poorer people living in LEDC’s simply die because we, the richer people living in MEDC’s, don’t want to donate or help out by giving just a relatively small portion of our money is not morally right.

Picture Credit:

http://www.donatecharity.net/images/Donate%20Charity_edited_html_26db936b.jpg

“Magazines, TV shows and films are chock-full of toned women and muscular men without an obvious trace of body fat. Although such bodies can be the product of intense diets, workout regimens, genetics, cosmetic surgery or even photo retouching, adolescents are trying to get those same physiques through dietary supplements, hormones and steroids.” (“Lawrence Journal-World & News”) http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/aug/16/study_teens_see/?living

Nowadays, so many young teens are obsessed with their physical appearances. Most teens are not satisfied with their looks and/or body and wish that they looked differently. Sometimes this obsession with how their bodies look can lead to severe mental problems such as eating disorders. For example, Anorexia and Bulimia. Most of the cause for the obsession with how we look is from the media. The media is constantly showing us pictures of “perfect” people. These images are everywhere. They’re on television, in magazines, on the internet, etc. They are giving people the wrong impression that you need to be beautiful to be happy.

Magazines, however, state that they assume that the readers of their magazines know that a lot of their photos have been edited and retouched. However, that is not true at all. When young teens look at the glossy pages of a magazine, they believe that’s what you have to look like to be liked by everyone. We get the wrong impression that being thin means being beautiful and being happy. Young girls and boys do not realize the fact that all the pictures of “big stars” and the “top celebrities” that appear in magazines and on the internet have probably all been edited or retouched in one way or another, and that no one in the world is completely perfect.

Therefore, I think that magazines should either show more pictures of real people that aren’t edited and look as they actually should. It is terrible that people have this false perception of how beauty equals happiness. The media is causing a lot of problems nowadays showing the viewers all these false images. It is especially corrupting the young teens, and it is very bad, and it should be stopped.

For more information:

http://kidshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/problems/body_image.html.

http://parentingteens.about.com/od/bodyimage/f/media_bodyimage.htm.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/28/48hours/main551362.shtml.

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/retouch/glamour-model-retouch.jpg.

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/10/18/media_advertising_reality_and_the.htm.

http://www.baysideonline.com/8082/medias-teachings-of-beauty-to-our-teenagers/.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/aug/16/study_teens_see/?living

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/cfta-tdb071603.php.

Picture Credit:

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/retouch/glamour-model-retouch.jpg

http://pixelperfekt.com/gallery/albums/userpics/normal_retouch2.jpg

Notes:
· Mergers are when things in the background interfere with your main subject in the picture
· For example, a tree in the background might happen to be right behind of where a person is standing and it looks like the tree is coming out of that person’s head
· Mergers are sometimes difficult to spot when you are actually taking the photo, but afterwards when you look at the photo, you can see the mergers very obviously
· You can also cause mergers when you cut people’s head off or their feet in a picture. This is called a border merger. This is caused by poor alignment of the photographer’s eye in the camera viewfinder
· Near mergers are not as bad, but they can end up stealing attention away from the center of interest.
· Near mergers are other lines or objects that are simply too close to the object of interest. For example, if you take a picture of a girl holding a red ball, and there is a red boat in the background and the two things happen to collide, it takes away focus and the photo doesn’t turn out very well

To avoid mergers, you should try and focus not only on the object that you are taking a picture of, but the photograph as a whole, including the background
The photo on the left is an example of a merger. The bed post looks as though it is coming right out of his head, and it ends up making him look quite silly. I might have not seen that when I was taking the picture, but it is very obvious now that I look at it afterwards.
The photo on the right is an example of how I could take that same photo and try to avoid the merger. I’ve taken the photo so that the object of interest is actually next to the bed post, not right in front of it. This makes the whole photo look better as a whole.

Notes

· Framing is placing the subject of interest with objects in the foreground

· This can give picture a more sense of depth

· Some example of “frames” might be trees in the foreground or other buildings in the foreground, etc.

This photo is an example of framing because it has a sort of “frame” around the main subject. It has objects in the foreground that gives the picture more of a sense of depth.

Notes:

· The camera viewpoint and subject must be placed carefully to create a well balanced photograph

· Good balance is the arrangement of shapes, colors, or areas of light and dark that complement one another so that the photo looks balanced

· Symmetrical balance is another way to achieve good balance in a picture

· Symmetrical balance is when you have the same thing on both left and right sides

· Non symmetrical is another tactic

· This is when, for example, both sides of the photo have a statue head in it, but one side has a lopsided and smaller head while the other side has a straight, big head

This photo has symmetrical balance. Both sides are more or less the same, and the background is also the same on both sides. There is a person on each side of the photo.

Notes:

· Simplicity is looking for ways to give the subject in your picture the most visual attention as possible

· One way to do this is to select an uncomplicated and simple background that does not take attention away from the main subject

· Compose your photo simply so that the reason for the picture can be seen clearly right away

This picture has a very simple background that does not take the interest away from the main subject. Also, the main subject of the picture is very clear, and the photograph is very simple and is not confusing to look at.

Notes:

· Lines play a very important role in composition

· Diagonal lines are dynamic

· You can use diagonal line as a simple way to lead into the picture

· You can also use repetitive lines to draw attention to the main subject

This picture is a good example of lines because it has repetitive diagonal lines. It also provides a simple way that leads into and out of the picture. The diagonal lines are dynamic.