Cheryl Parisi: Graffiti, Art, Vandalism?

When you see graffiti on the side of a highway overpass, or the top of a billboard don’t you wonder how they were able to get up there, put it up, and get back down without getting caught?

To the older generation they see graffiti and say “ugh they destroyed that building!”, but to todays generation, graffiti isn’t vandalism, but art. It doesn’t necessarily take away from the beauty of a building, but adds to it. Graffiti has become a big part of society today, it can be found everywhere from the sides of buildings, to album covers of great songwriters. Well know graffiti artists went from being hunted down by the cops for putting up their work to selling their work in galleries for thousands of dollars. A lot of time, thought, and effort go into it a good portion of the time. It can be something small, or it can be something large. Its not only done with spray paint, but some are posters cut up into several pieces then assembled on sight and glued to the wall, while others are small, and put in places where you wouldn’t notice unless you knew where to look.

 

Kelly Malloy: Recovery

A ringing sound fills my ears as I roll over in bed. The sound is not my alarm, but the daily noise of hammers striking nails and the angry buzzing of wood saws. It is 8 a.m. and the workday has begun. It’s been a year and a half since Hurricane Sandy decimated Breezy Point, a small beach town located right outside New York City, and the rebuilding process has just barely begun.

 Deemed the “Irish Riveria”, Breezy Point has always been a small town, where summer residency reaches a high of 12,000, and settles down to just fewer than 5,000 through the winter months. The streets, which were once lively with activity, are still eerily quiet, deserted except for construction workers.

It has been a hard return for most, a mix of waiting on money from the government or insurance companies, waiting for permits to clear for all levels of construction, or trying to find a contractor, it has been an arduous last year. We are still in recovery, and for most it will take years to return to the normalcy of daily life. We are a patchwork town now, where homes are spaced apart by empty sand lots. And yet, throughout everything, we have not lost our sense of community, the love for our town, and our neighbors.

Paul Sarris Final

Artists Statement

               Throughout my time here in college it has become more evident how terrible humans are to the earth. Humans are constantly ruining the beautiful landscapes and cities throughout this country because of our industrialization and just lack of respect for the earth. I was influenced to do this project because I am from northwestern Connecticut and all there is around me are farms and just houses with a lot of land. I took the opportunity to travel and show all of the different ways that humans are negatively impacting the earth. In this series of photographs I explored; pollution through mass amounts of cars, littering, power lines and factories industrializing beautiful landscapes or just being wasteful of space by leaving abandon buildings and houses that are burnt out. This project made me aware of how wasteful humans really are with all of the resources that we have.

Alvis Urdaneta: Final Project

Since the creation of social media, businesses have tried to harness its power to promote their products. Websites like Yelp have been operating as an “online urban guide” where any consumer (no matter what their bank account holds) can go and write a review on a business. This sort of access to consumers has both helped and hindered all types of businesses as a result of the reviews dictating their ratings. While websites like these are causing controversy in the business world, none have yet to mention the effects websites like these have on society. In 2014 citizens know to be cautious of what they post on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but what about the reviews they post about gentlemen’s clubs on Yelp?

Yelp has taken one of the greatest taboos of society and allowed people to publish their every thought on it. While it is known that strip clubs exist and may be up the block, the clubs themselves have taken a step back and tried to blend in and be as presentable and professional as possible, even if it is just so that they do not get shut down. Before, attendees of the clubs were not so public about how they spent their evenings. Now, websites like Yelp have equated strip clubs with restaurants, shopping centers, and even hospitals and have given everyone a soapbox to stand on to share their opinion alongside a photo of themselves and their information.

            This series illustrates societies’ desensitization to their own anonymity contrasted against each clubs’ presentation of their business. 

Alvia Urdaneta: Missed Opportunity

Alvia Urdaneta

Documentary Photography

May 11, 2014

Professor Ray

Missed Opportunity

            One evening last fall, my father and I were driving around Long Island. Being from Pennsylvania, my family rarely gets to come out to New York, and when they do it is always for some sort of special occasion. I cannot remember anymore where my father and I were going that evening, because one moment has overshadowed the entire visit.

            At one point in our drive, my father and I were driving through an industrial neighborhood on Denton Avenue in New Hyde Park. The street has a great blue-collar vibe during the day, with husky men walking around covered in grease on their way to the deli on the block to lunch. But it was nighttime and the street was empty, it was cold and very dark. It was then that my dad (a fellow photographer) stopped the car suddenly as we saw a school bus parked next to a junkyard, burnt up and destroyed from what must have been a fire.

The bus was captivating. We both could not stop gawking about what a magnificent site the bus had become, but were also conflicted with the idea of a school bus on fire. We both instantly started listing ways we would want to photograph the bus, and could not get over the visions of how the photographs would look. Unfortunately, neither of us had our cameras, so I took out my phone and snapped this image of it with promise to come back.

                             

By the time I returned to look for the bus camera in hand, it was gone. Just like that the opportunity for all of those great ideas was missed. Since then I have thought about that bus and tried to think of ways to have that opportunity again. Now with summer approaching, I hope to reach out to some junkyards to see if they will let me photograph inside the yards.

Some Body in Motion

Who are you when you think no one is watching?

The car has become not only a mode of transportation, but also a mobile home; it is a place of comfort and seclusion in our travel. The way we drive, the music we listen to, the seat position we have, and the decorations we display are parts of each personality. As we drive, we are lost in the world of the moving vehicle, interacting with countless others yet never leaving that personal space.

This series of photographs capture that unrestrained, very natural act of driving as it is to each individual, yet it mimics the anonymity of the moving individual through repetition. The common denominator is motion and the act of driving, yet even in the simplicity of a commute, each driver is unique.

Here is a glimpse at a few “some bodies” in motion. Separated by glass, speed, and distance, you are welcome into the anonymous space that makes these people into the generic drivers, yet they are someone worth watching, if only in a glance.

Princy Prasad

STREET CINEMA

Summer 2013. Brooklyn NY. I had just moved into my first real city apartment. 5^th floor walk-up in a brand new building with my two best girlfriends. Both recent college grads. After the initial excitement of the big transition died down, and the phase of exploration was over I started to notice how out of place this spectacular piece of architecture was in the surrounding neighborhood we had just moved into. Gentrification was all around us. The second you step outside the front door is a step into a completely mingled and diverse world. I was so fascinated by how many different races, cultures, and religions all coincided in this borough and how each was able to feel like they were at home. The purpose of Street Cinema was to give a peek into the rapidly changing environment that I have now declared my home, and to display how many different walks of life also reside in the same area. From rich to poor, old to young, black, white, Hispanic, Jewish, and every other type of being that walks the earth. Everyone that is anyone is here. All within a very short radius of each other. These photos were shot in my own personal neighborhood so it is a direct view into the scene in which I experience each day. 

Maya Collins

DOC Final Artist Statement