Framing

In photography, framing something is how you get a point across. By framing the same shot differently, you can actually change the meaning of the photo. For example, if you have a scene of two well dressed women ignoring a homeless man, the way you frame the shot can change the meaning of the situation. Say you include the homeless man, but not the two women. This makes a sympathy shot for the viewer, the viewer can relate to the homeless man, see his life as a downtrodden soul, things like that. If you just shoot the two women, you get a shot of two well dressed women, you look at their clothes, demeanor, etc. But if you shoot the scene as a whole, you get an idea of who the women are as people, who the man is as a person, and how society has put them together as a whole.

it's very interesting to meet the other people in my program. Since none of our french is good enough to express ourselves the way that we would normally back in the states, we each get a very small view, a "framed" view if you will, of how the other people are normally. All of us are relatively polite and friendly toward each other in french (which we're supposed to be speaking 100% of the time), but when we slip into english, it's really interesting to see how exactly things change. Peoples personalities actually change. It's very difficult to describe, and very weird. People are still nice and polite, but the way in which they express themselves changes very dramatically.

anyway.

the visit to gwen, elise's friend, could not have gone better in my opinion, except if i had had more time in durfort. I left friday afternoon, took an hour bus to marseille, about a 4 hour train to toulouse, an hour long bus to revel, and about a 10 min car ride back to "la cascade," the name of the retreat gwen has created. The house was BEAUTIFUL, and gwen's really awesome personality was the only thing that outshown it. She fed me a great dinner the night i arrived, and we talked for hours before going to bed. In the morning, i showed her my website, we went out to the farmers market (live chickens for sale, anyone?) and went to the nearby town of "i don't remember the name." It was a really great visit...I felt a lot more connected to durfort and its surroundings that i ever had in aix. i think it had something to with the ruralism of the place, but i can't be sure. At 1:00, i did the whole trip in reverse to get back home, but because of layovers i got in around 11:00PM. long two days, but totally worth it.

classes are going well, i especially like my art classes. they are super awesome, and i've forgotten how much i like drawing. Actually, last night i used some skills that i learned in my math class to draw a section of my homework. The assignment was to draw our bedroom, so i drew it in correct perspective. I was pretty fun to get back into that, and my host mother was officially VERY impressed.

that's all for now. I miss you guys terribly. (photo at the top from durfort - the stream down the center of the road was used at the begining of the town to help form the copper pots that the area is known for. photo at the middle is the view from the upstairs terrace of gwen'shouse, looking back toward the mountains.)