Week 3 With Light
This week was much better for me. I was feeling a lot better, and I got over my "crisis" :). I was managed to get into conversations without dying. I would say I had a positive week. I played around with some actual chemicals (I mean measured them), I saw an actual precipitate precipitate out.
Chemistry:
This week, I learned how photos were made (quite ingenious actually). Producing photos has to do with producing a sliver precipitate - which when exposed to UV light, it breaks silver's bond with chloride. After the silver obtains its electrons (from the Developer), it turns black, when many silver atoms in varying quantities at different places turn black, it produces the picture. Since sliver is light sensitive, first we had to turn the classroom into a dark room. The first three days of the week were spent getting the chemicals ready for the emulsions, turning the classroom into a safe place that we can operate in the dark. My job was to measure out the chemicals. On Thursday (the big day) we made our emulsions.
The emulsion is basically the chemical mixture we paint onto the light sensitive paper. In order to make emulsion, we added a gelatin-sodium chloride mix to hot water. Then after the mixture was fully dissolved, we turned off the lights and added the sliver nitrate. After mixing it, we poured it into a light-proof bottle.
Humanities:
We choose a picture that Dorothea Lange took during the Great Depression and wrote few different snippets talking about the picture and time period.
My picture:
The subject:
A boy of this age should be running around and playing, yet this boy has been helping his parents pick crops for years. Most surprisingly though, the kid looks like the men that are commonly portrayed in Depression era photography. If you were to look closely, the eyes are the same in both instances: tired, frustrated and somewhat determined (in an angry way). The quote that came along with photo was his mom saying "You'd be surprised what that boy can pick (hops).” A small kid working on a beer farms...well, how much worse could America do for its youth?
The Era:
The Great Depression started on a unfortunate tuesday, when the Stock Market collapsed. To make things worse, the very next year the Great Plains didn’t get their rains on time, ruining the dreams and the lives of the farmers as well. The Great Plains went through what is now known as the Dust Bowl, a period of time when dust storms would blow away topsoil, the important nutritious part, which is vital for farming. It was during these few years that thousands of people would move to California to pick crops for minimal wages. Many families barely made enough; if one person got sick, they fell behind on their expenses. It was during this time that the government hired photographers to go around America and take pictures of conditions that most Americans lived in.
Dorothea Lange:
Dorothea Lange had a good childhood, not a rich one but one that did a good job educating her, and gave her a fair chance and the world. At first, Dorothea ran a portrait studio, but after photographing Native Americans, she started to observe the problems in her neighborhood as well. During the Great Depression, she went around and took pictures of the conditions migrant workers lived and worked in. She was extremely passionate about showing the world what it couldn’t see through her photographs.
Apart from analyzing Dorthea Lange's photograph, we also read Steinbeck. My group read Cannery Row, a book filled with very interesting characters. Unlike Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck spends more time focusing on multiple characters. Just from reading the first few chapters, I feel like this book will focus on a community as a whole.
In terms of the individual characters, I've met Lee Chong, Doc, Mack and his friends, Horace, Chinaman, and a little bit about William, Hazel and Alfred.
Lee Chong is a generous, efficient man who cares about his community. He owns a store that contains just about everything.
Hoarace ended up in debt but he also cares about living a moral life. Therefore, he gave up his biggest, most expensive property. Although he was a man of morals, he didn't believe in himself. He committed suicide.
Mack and his friends are a group of jolly men that work for a month at a time. They are rowdy yet stick to their words.
