Assignment #24: TED Talk: How Photography Connects Us

Summary

As the TED Talk started, David Griffen was introducing himself as the photo director of National Geographic. He started by showing some popular photos taken at National Geographic such as one of an Afghan refugee. He said this is a beautiful photo, but the Harvard Lampoon is thinking of using Photoshop and manipulating the photo to make it their own. David shudders of what else they could do to the already magnificent photo. As the TED Talk continues, he discusses how these other photos of animals, objects, and people can tell a story within themselves and he talks about how these famous photographers were able to capture these amazing shots. A quote that sums up a majority of his talk was, "Photographs emulate the way that our minds freezes a significant moment."

Critiques/What I Did Not Like That Much

Some things that I did not like about his TED Talk was how he bounced to different subjects abruptly because when he would do that, and I would not be able to follow him. He would talk about famous photographers, his son, and then move to the people in the more urban areas. I wish his TED talk was on one subject with a bunch of photographs surrounding this event which he started to do at the end when he was talking about the slums and the marine photography. I wished that maybe he focused just on the slum project to show us the behind-the-scenes of the project and how the photographer was able to capture the emotion of those places and the feel of the environment with the people. Or I wished he just focused on the marine photography adventure with the behind-the-scenes on that too. 

What I Liked/My Emotions

Even though I wished he focused on one of the projects for the whole TED Talk, I loved the story about his son. I was able to follow along and he really painted the picture for me. This applies to my favorite quote that I put about a photograph capturing a significant moment that you will look back on in the future when it comes across your mind again. He was saying that he and his son had different visions and this shows that experience in two different shoes and this captures two different significant moments. I also really liked the photographs that he showed because the reaction I got was sometimes happy like the seal and the underwater photographer and sometimes they made me mad like the elephant tusks and the dead animals on the ground. A photograph is able to capture an emotion and a reaction from the audience.