Landscape: Activity 2

Find two landscape photographs that question social values or act as a metaphor for personal issues that the photographer is trying to express. Discuss whether the communication is clear or ambiguous and how this communication is conveyed.

The first picture shows a very natural and green area filled with trees and grass. And as you move outward and away from the center of this photo, buildings start to appear and fewer green is there. Then the buildings look almost like they are multiplying and increasing, where there are no more visible trees the farther from the center you go. When I saw this , I interpreted not just one meaning, but two. The first to come to mind was that although we have progressed over time and had advanced in many ways, such as technology, nature and earthy things are, and always will be, the center of life. The second meaning I interpreted from this photograph was that maybe the photographer was capturing how little we care about our environment, how technology and buildings are engulfing our earth, this has become acceptable to leave behind and its becoming a bigger problem while we advance farther and farther in technology. So I was thinking that maybe this was some kind of reality check, or a cry for help to save our planet.

The second picture shows a single tree surrounded by an abundance of water and some trees and mountains far in the background. I'm not sure if the photographer took this picture for just the pure beauty and rarity of this landscape or if there was some sort of meaning the photographer came up with while taking it. I usually can look at any picture and relate it to myself or to humans and society in general. What I see in this photograph is loneliness, and although the tree is abandoned and bare, away from anything like itself, it is rare and there is some sort of beauty and uniqueness. And what we see, especially in this society and generation, more and more teens are "feeling alone", for whatever reason, this feeling of unimportance exists, is spreading like a virus and is affecting teens around the world. And while they feel unimportant, dull, ugly, stupid, and a countless amount of other negative and untrue words, they fail to see the beauty of being separate and unique and their own person. No one seems to understand that being unusually rare and separate is what is truly fascinating.