Arguing With Images

First off, here's the album I created, the slideshow button is right above the first picture.

And now for my reflection...

When I began the “Arguing With Images” assignment, I was a little unsure of how to proceed. After watching “Ways of Seeing,” I had the idea that most arguments could be established using pictures; in fact, my very first idea was to create an argument about the use of the Chief Illiniwek symbol, and the struggles that the University has gone through on that account. However, once I started considering the limitations of text, along with sound, I realized right away that that idea was going to be nearly impossible. Every image I could think of, besides the Chief himself, had some kind of textual reference to provide context.

Keeping this in mind, I decided to try to come up with iconic images in my everyday life, and I immediately thought of my truck. Very little text would show up in a picture of my truck, and the image of a pick-up has numerous possible angles to examine. Considering that I had had my truck towed before, and also gotten a parking ticket recently, I decided that maybe retracing that story would be interesting. After all, a towed vehicle is a relatively common occurrence, and I thought it would be interesting to follow the route taken by a towed car.

Before I started taking those pictures, though, I ended up driving around for a while, trying to think of places to take these pictures that would provide some sort of subtext, as I was unhappy with “just” following a towed vehicle (and, inspired by class discussion, I thought I would provide a reason for it happening). However, I found myself examining the rampant construction and concrete growth of Champaign, and decided to take pictures of that instead, thinking it might lead to some cool ideas. In the end, I took pictures all along First Street, all the way outside of town, and realized that the most interesting part was the urban sprawl. I immediately shifted my focus to that.

Driving back and forth several times, I took pictures of the parking lots, low-level concrete buildings, and heavy construction of the town. The further I got away from Green Street, however, the more I noticed that that construction had a different take—new buildings were going up where none had stood before, instead of replacing old ones. Land was being leased and sold. Farmland was giving way—abruptly—to apartment complexes. My goal, after taking the initial pictures of construction in Champaign, became to document the expansive urban sprawl of the area.

Keeping McCloud's assertions in mind, that people relate to images they can see themselves in, I purposefully took most of the pictures from the driver's seat of my truck. No longer was the pick-up itself a point of interest (not everyone has been towed, after all), but the driver's seat became a way of pulling a viewer into my pictures. Every image that could safely be taken from that setting was, and I believe that it will give a sense to the viewer of actually driving along and seeing the “urbanization” of the area for themselves.

Though I went through a few changes in my plans, I feel like the images and “argument” I ended up making grew from a more natural understanding of imagery itself. Rather than simply forcing a half-baked idea into images, I followed the images as they led to a particular idea, and tried to represent that through my slideshow.