Second And Third Picture The Little Girl example essay topic

When I took this class I came in with no knowledge of photography. To me pictures were just a piece of film from the past. I never appreciated photography until I entered this class and viewed the pictures from the book and visited the New York Historical Society with photographs from Milton Rogovin. His exhibition truly surprised me. When I heard about this trip I thought it was going to be another museum visit. The second I entered his exhibition I see a huge wall with two people dancing the trance.

That picture really started my trip positively. As I started to look around I noticed that all of his pictures were of people. Every picture had sadness to it. These photographs really touched me.

They each have their own story to tell. In the beginning I was wondering why Rogovin took photographs like that but until later I realized what his point was. These people were all from lower classes. No one ever pays attention to poor people and these photographs really made these people feel like they were worth something.

Rogovin said that these were "the neglected people and places of Buffalo, NY". When I saw these pictures it seemed so real and natural. Rogovin did not have to do much to make these photographs mean something because automatically I felt something for these people just by looking at their faces. There were pictures of mothers with children, fathers with sons, friends with friends. Rogovin loved to see people grow through his pictures.

He loved the way life could change so drastically in such a little time. He had a lot of photos that consisted of more than two sets. They all started off with the people being young and ending with them grown up. It was like a story of their life in just a couple of photographs.

His work is amazing and it really did bring light to these people. It was very difficult to choose one photograph since I admired all of them and they all were touching pictures. But the one that really touched me was photo #16. This set consisted of four photos. It was a mother with her daughter and it ranged from years 1972-2001. I first looked at this picture without reading the story or listening to the summary.

I wanted to compare my view to what was actually happening. In the first photo the mother was sitting next to her young daughter. It seemed like they got all dressed up for this picture. The girl seemed like she was around 8 years old.

In the second and third picture the little girl seemed all grown up blossomed into a woman with her mother by her side. In the fourth photograph the daughter was sitting down holding a picture of her mother. I knew right away that her mother passed away. This set really made me feel sad. When I read the story the daughter was saying how in the first picture her mother felt like a movie star.

She felt admired like Rogovin said they felt. It must feel nice having a well known photographer taking a picture of you. The daughter said they were happy in the third picture where they were standing outside a graphitize d wall. Her mother ended up "drinking herself to death". Between the third and fourth picture she fell into depression and turned to drinking which caused her to have cirrhosis liver. When I heard the lady talking about her mother I heard the pain in her voice and how much she missed her mother.

It almost bought me to tears. Rogovin had to have a reason to choose this set to be put up. Between these pictures tells another story. A story left to our imagination.

From the little girl she was to the woman she became was told in four photos. I didn't even need to read the story in order to know what was going on. It was like in the beginning they were working their way up in life and ended up going back down. She said that in the third picture they were happy but in the fourth picture she was gone. There was a lot of depression and struggling between these photographs.

It was like a bond being broken between two people who only rely on each others love to survive. In the first picture she was just a little girl who needed security and mom was there to give it to her but as years went by the opposite occurred. The mother now needed her daughter. She had no where to turn so she turned to drinking which was the cause of her death. I think Rogovin wanted to show people that you didn't have to live a perfect life in order to be appreciated.

These were low class people living in low class neighborhoods but I have never seen such life in pictures as I have seen in this exhibition. These photographs showed a different side of these people but these people are just like everyone else struggling with every day issues. It doesn't hurt to feel like you are worth something and that is how Rogovin made these people feel. Colors and big things is not what make a picture great. What makes a picture great is the passion that the photographer puts into his pictures like Milton Rogovin did. He had a connection with these people.

He watched them grow, he watched them cry. He felt for them and he wanted them to be known a regular people like you and me.