Assignment 2

Activity B&C

I found three random images for www.sxc.hu and printed them off. I then asked several different people from different age groups and occupations to make a short story from these images. My first three images were a bride, a squirrel and some cards.Here are my results:

Male - 20 - Engineer
While the groom played poker an infestation of ravenous grey squirrels set about the buffet, and the bride, upset,ran down to the beach to contemplate how it was all her husband to be's fault.

Female - 45 - Teaching Assistant
Soon after she was married the bride realised she had made a huge mistake. She thought about jumping off the cliff into the sea, but instead stole the money her husband won at poker, bought a cottage in the woods and lived among the squirrels.

Male - 18 - Engineer
Bride was away to get married but her partner stood her up and went to the casino to play blackjack instead. So she killed a squirrel.

Female - 20 - college student
There was a bride who was stood up on her wedding day by her husband to be, who never ever came back from his stag night in Las Vegas. As lonely and upset as she was, she decided to get on with her life and moved to the country.

Female - 13 - Pupil
The bride was playing poker on her hen night with her friends. She got drunk and bought a squirrel. The groom never showed up to the wedding so she ran away to spain with her squirrel and never came home.

Male - 43 - Police Officer
The bride to be found out her husband was a ganster on her wedding day. He was found out by the British police for cheeting at the casino and was jailed for fraud. The bride then called the wedding off as she wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

I think these are all really intresing, although they were all really similar. I think it is quite interesting how each of there stories relates back to there occupation in a way. Also the ages and the genders. I personally think that all the female versions are a bit more believablethan the males.

Activity D

I then decided to use the second story, written by a 45 year old female Teaching Assistant, as my target story. I found an image of a lady stealing some money as I thought this would relate best. I then asked a different group of people to interpret the images. Here are some of my results:

Female - 21 - Waitress
The bride was about to get married in Spain but instead she stole the money that her and her husband won at the casino and moved to a small cottage in the countryside and lived happily ever after.

Male - 21 - Student
There was a bride who was stood up on her wedding day by her husband who had ran away with loads of money that he won playing poker. The bride jamp off a cliff and her body was found at the side of a lake in the country, with all the squirrels and different kinds of animals eating it.
Male - 68 - Retired
A selfish bride decided to stand her husband up on his wedding day because she got lucky at the casino and won a load of cash at her hen party. She ran away to mexico with all the money and her ex-fiancee had nowhere to live, so he found an abandoned hut in the woods.

Female - 20 - Bartender
the bride dressed up in disguise and went to the casino. She was playing with fake money but because she was drunk she didnt think anything of it and ended up winning thousands. The next day she felt really guilty and couldnt live with herself so she jumped off a cliff on her wedding morning and left her dirty money with her husband and there pet squirrel.

I think this activity went quite well. They all came up with similar stories. They all got the fourth picture spot on about the money being stolen, in most cases. I didnt put them in the right order, But i dont think it would of made much of a difference as they were all along the same lines, the money being stolen, the running away and the casino. Although I think people didnt really know what to say about the squirrel picture. That one came up with a few different stories.

Activity E

I then started to add text to the images. First of all I added one word to go with my origanal three images, to help tell my target story. I added the word 'steal' This didnt really help at all as people were coming up with all sorts of different things such as "the bride stole her wedding dress" and "They stole a squirrel." Everything was going a bit off track so I added one word to each picture, For the bride picture I added, 'stole,' for the cards I added 'money,' and for the squirrel I added 'lived.'
This really surprised me as more and more people were coming up with the same idea, They wernt 100% correct but they was pretty similar. I Found this Experiment really intresting and thought it was intrersting how different people who study different things or have different carrers or hobbies will, most of the time, connect thier personal lifestyle and use it in thier own story.

activity 1C and 1D

I found this activity very interesting but at the same time i thought it was a bit difficult. I was given a total of 26 photos of a girl who i don't know very well growing up. I had to look at these photos and find out what they told me, I looked at different things such as who she was with, her style, clothes, surroundings, family etc.

Some of the things I found out about Catriana was that she was:

• Outgoing
• sociable
• creative
• adventurous
• friendly
• likes music
• confidant
• popular
• unique
• cuddly

My notes on my findings:

From what I can see from the photos that Catriana gave me, I think she is quite close with her family. I think she has a younger brother, maybe two or three years younger than herself. Catrianan comes from a family of four, herself, mum, dad, and brother. It looks like she gets on well with her family. In both photos with her and her brother, they are both smiling and look really happy.

I think Catriana may be about 19 years old. I think her house looked quite modern in one of the pictures considering it was taken maybe about seventeen eighteen years ago. It looked like her family had a dishwasher, which is pretty unusual for so long ago?

To me Catrianan looks like a very creative person. there are several pictures of her dressed up, one being her wearing what looked like her mums jewellery. There is also another couple of pictures of her dressed up, one as a princess/fairy? but its not just Catrianan in this picture there is another five of her friends and they are all dressed up the same. This tells me that they were either going to a princess/fairy party, or they were all just really close friends and wanted to be the same as each other.

Catrianan looks like she has a boyfriend, as the same guy appears in three different pictures, this tells me that she is quite comfortable with him.

Looking at the pictures with her and her friends, they are all quite similar and they all look like they have there own style. I wouldn't quite call it a gothic style but maybe along the same lines. I have also noticed that catrianan was wearing pink in some of her younger photos but since she has grown up, it looks like she would never wear pink but has moved on to stripes.

From what I can see from her room (or what I think is her room) is she likes to listen to music as there is a lot of c.d's on her shelfs. Also there is a lot of photos I think on her wall of her friends, which tells me that she is really close with them.

Overall I think Catriana is a very beautiful girl who has a very close bond with her family. She likes to socialise and looks like she is very outgoing and has a lot of close friends. I think her style is unique and her friends are all similar but in a different way. Catriana looks like a fun adventurous person who is also very confidant.

I then met up with catriana to discuss my findings with her and vice versa. It turns out that I was pretty spot on. Nearly all right expect I got a few things wrong, nothing drastic, it was just the wrong house in one of the pictres i commented on, I thought it was hers but it was her gran and grampas. Also There was a picture of her ex boyfriend that I thought was her boyfriend but I never looked at the photo close enough to see that it was a different guy from the other two pictures. They was no observations that I made that Catriana had never considered before.

When Catriana was telling me what she got from my photo's she was also pretty much right. There was nothing she said, or she got from the photos that was incorrect. She also hit the nail on the head when it came to my family, especially my little brother. There was actually things that she got from the photos that I never really considered when I was deciding what ones to give her.

I found this activity really interesting and I think its amazing what people can tell you about yourself, family, surroundings and up bringing from just a few old family photographs.