Portraiture

By | Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences | No Comments

In photography there is a different category called Portraiture. How does portraiture differ from general photography? Well not very different. It is well within the boundary and rules of photography in general. Still there is a difference. What is it? I see the subject held very close. All the details are visible. The texture ,color and emotions are much more obvious. You are able to read each line and the emotion behind that. You now don’t just think about the subject in the frame but also start to question the motive of the artist. Sometimes we de-saturate the background to bring all the focus on to the subject.

Do we have similar bridges in teaching? How often do we pick the subject and put it at large. Something like a zoom facility where the details are very visible. But it is not so easy in teaching. If you pick up the subject without the context, students might become confused. Still there is a need to focus on the subject. I think this can be achieved by giving the context of the subject and then zooming in detail of the subject ,whereby we desaturate the context and focus on the subject itself. We then need to look at all the emotions. It can be achieved by looking at it through different angles. This is when the teachers motive and design skills will count for. The subject will then become clear to the pupil and stay in their memory as the smile of Monalisa.

 

Avatar: My Shadow online

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The word “Avatar” comes from Sanskrit. My take on avatar is a bit different and I will try to explain myself here but it might be a case where I may sound very ambiguous as it is beyond the scope of 400 words to explain everything. I grew up listening to stories of “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”, two epics that are integral parts of life in India.

In fact according to the “Jataka Tales”, Buddha was born as a human in his approximately 43rd birth. He began as a monkey king and every life he would do good deeds to be born as a better creature. Every birth was a different avatar and you go from strength to strength. I was given to learn that an avatar is God incarnated as a human being. Lord “Rama” is an avatar of the best man ever born. “Goddess Durga” has 10 hands and symbolizes supreme power that is needed to overcome evil. Two hands are just not enough to kill the demon and thus she has different weapons in different hands. Similarly there are hundreds of Gods in Hinduism and each symbolizes a different trait and is worshiped for their respective qualities. So when I sit for an exam, I pray a different god and at other time I may worship a different god depending on what quality I am looking forward to. Sounds funny? Yes it is but the whole thing is very complex and I have not been able to completely understand everything myself.

But what I understand is that we do the same things in real life. We take different roles in different places and different times. As a child I had wanted to become a tennis player whenever the Wimbledon Season came and would want to be a pilot every time a plane flew by. But as I have grown, the scope of those roles closed down and now I know that I am a graduate student and might stick to academics for the rest of my life. My Avatar will never be a pilot or doctor again. However whenever I see a tennis player I become nostalgic and might be that my behavior with him will be completely different as compared to a football player. People change, philosophies change, so do the Avatars. Or should they? Can I not be a tennis player in my Fantasy? While reading the papers of this week I was reminded of a German Movie I had seen called “Das Experiment”. In the movie a bunch of common citizens were broken into 2 groups and were assigned roles of prisoners and police officers. Strangely enough the common citizens had behavioral changes and the acting police was much harsher than actual police and the situation spirals out of control. I have not played MMORPs but was once given the role of a Class Representative in school. The very first day I had hit my best friend, trying to maintain the decorum of the class and my newly found post. It had a very bad effect on my friendship. My personal experience is that give people responsibility and they will change accordingly. So do Avatars too have such influence?

But surely our experiences have an effect on us whether real or virtual. “By default” has become integral part of our common day language and is not just limited to computers. Its not far when we would start to act our Avatars in our real lives. I just wish we go from strength to strength and improve our lives and not tread the opposite way.

Depth Vs Lateral Thinking

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This week’s module is on Fashion. I was wondering if buying a whole range of local clothes is better than buying a few branded ones. Should I have 2 Versace Trousers or have 15 from the Walmart for the same price? What is good, Variety or Quality?

I am personally very confused on the topic. Most of the time I want variety and would not want to wear the same clothes to a party. But again these clothes don’t last as long as my branded clothes, which I can wear for ages. Though I would like to have a variety of branded clothes, my pocket does not allow me to do that.

Similarly there is a constraint in teaching and learning. Should the teachers expose students to a lot of subjects or should they go deep into few subjects in depth? What is better? Lateral Vs Vertical is a choice we have to make because academic hours are after all limited. Also when we choose subjects to go in depth, should it be just science and math?

I like variety and quality both, but my resources are limited. Can someone suggest me how to prioritize myself? Is there a way to take the  middle path between quality and quantity?

Social Capital: We only have 24 Hours in a day

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This time when I traveled to US, it took me 40 hours. In my span of almost 2 days of travelling with 2 other passengers, I hardly talked to them. Looking back I feel that the small screen provided in front of my seat along with the remote was the culprit. But was it? The other 2 persons travelling with me were Indians and I had felt that I knew enough about my own country. I was travelling by Emirates and so had access to Arabic music and movies which I had not had much access to before. I found it more interesting to learn and experience something new.

Hollywood movies have played a great role in my life. Back at home, my family might have thought that I was wasting time, but it has taught me to some extent about the American culture. Now when I am in US, the online experience that I carried along with me has tremendously helped my face to face communication. So was that time really a waste?

When we do research, we do literature study and begin our research from where others have left and carry it forward. There is no point reinventing the wheel. You cannot afford to spend your whole life and experiment all the facts that have been stated already. You take the results to be true. Similarly we can learn through other’s experiences and need not experience it all ourselves. I am sure that this learning might not be as effective as learning by creating mistakes . The choice is yours. It is for you to choose if you want to go in depth or explore laterally. Games can help you socialize or you can choose to go to a football field yourself. After all there is only 24 hours at your disposal.