WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

REUTERS/JESSICA RINALDI

      OK, I’m not a professional photographer or anything but I know good pictures when I see them and the ones in the photo slide show were subpar at best. I feel the pictures were supposed to be from the viewpoint of those in attendance at the Democratic National Convention. The New York Times wanted you to see the DNC from their eyes and if that’s the case the DNC looked boring as hell. Now don’t get me wrong, some photos were very powerful but some were poorly taken and made me feel like I was with some of the attendees bored as hell in Charlotte waiting for something fun to happen. I looked through the photos slideshow for each of the days of the DNC and decided to let you know about one Hit which was a memorable photo and one miss which was a memorable photo because it sucked.
DNC Day #1: Hit of the day is picture #23 showing Michelle Obama being greeted by a cheering crowd at the convention. The MISS of the day in that slide show was picture#4 which was a very amateur picture of a reporter’s legs with the caption “A television reporter broadcast from a spot on the convention floor”. The pic really looks like a 2 year old took it, and who knows, maybe one really did.
DNC Day #2: HIT of the day was a very provocative picture, it was picture #3 and let’s just say that there is a shadow that resembles a part of the males anatomy that rhymes with Venus (don’t believe me go check for yourself and post a comment and tell me if I’m right or wrong). The MISS of that slide show is the picture of Nancy Pelosi standing at the podium. Now the reason that it’s a MISS is because you don’t even know its Nancy Pelosi because all you see is her shadow and the bottom of her pants (real nice photography work).
DNC Day #3: The pics were pretty good, but of course there has to be a MISS (no slide show is perfect, except maybe mine but that’s another story). The hit for this one would have to be picture #27 which shows President Obama, the first lady and their two daughters. It’s a very beautiful picture that shows family unity and gives you such a warm tingly feeling. Now the MISS of this slide show is #17 which is a pic of Scarlett Johansson, now you may be asking yourself “how the heck can a pic of Sco-Jo be a MISS, everyone loves Sco-Jo”, well the pic only shows the back of her head and I’m not such a fan of hers that I can tell what the back of her head looks like but I’ll take their word that is was her(some of you Johansson fans could probably recognize her bun from anywhere but not me).
The most flawless slide show would have to be the one that showed BEHIND THESCENES OF THE DNC. Now those pictures were definitely professional and what made them stand out was the fact that they were in black and white which gave it a very historic feel. I truly wish whoever took those pics would have taken the pics of the rest of the DNC instead of letting a group of grade-schoolers run wild with their cameras which is what the majority of the pics in the slide show looked like. All in the all the photo slideshow wasn’t impressive and I expected a lot more from a respectable publication like the New York Times. Guess they need to hire some more interns; hope to see the announcement at the Starr Center in Baruch.

MULTIMEDIA ROUNDUP

Well, I will be honest and say that I did not hear any of the speeches of the DNC. Ok, ok, I’m going to be even more honest and say that I didn’t even watch the convention so this Media round up of all the speeches was perfect for a guy like me that wanted to hear what everyone was talking about.  It allowed me to select sections of the speeches that I wanted to hear so that I could act as if I heard the whole speech and really I just heard the juicy parts.  Out of all the social media the times tried to employ during the convention, this was by far the most useful.  I would like the thank the times for allowing a person that chose to watch Netflix on the night of the DNC the opportunity to act as if he watched every speech.  it made me proud to be an American(Insert salute here).