Advice to future students

Ms.Belisle will probably be the most patient teacher you have, so don't worry about falling behind.
In this class, I most enjoy the assignment that involved the design. In case you don't know, Ms.Belisle is an artist and has her own studio in San Antonio. She brings her artistic talent and passion into the class, and emphasizes the aesthetic aspect of the assignment.  Particularly, my favorite assignments are making postcard, manipulating the photos and creating website.

My website

You can see my website at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~wlin/. It is a website about myself, that features some of my novel experiences, travel photos and foreign language experiences. ( I still have not totally finished it yet, so some parts are not yet hyperlinked. )

I mainly used Photoshop rather than Expression Web to make my website. I chose my favorite photos from Gregory Colbert as my background, and put a lot of effort on aesthetic impression. I had lots of technical problems using Expression Web, such as writing on the picture and fixing position of pictures.

I would like to use this website in the future, uploading my experiences.

Picture that Lies

 I searched four pictures using Google Image. They originate in the religious websites. I replaced Buddha's head with Jesus's and adds Buddha on the cross.The manipulation conveys the message that each of the world's religious traditions share a single, universal truth on which foundation all religious knowledge and doctrine has grown. In this picture, I particularly try to manifest their shared unconditional love and the wisdom. While my motivation  is benign, the manipulation could be offensive to some viewers if they misinterpret my motivation as the intentional blasphemy or are not interested in the perennial philosophy.

The essay I found is titled The Truth Of A Single Instant" Focusing On The Issue Of Photo Manipulation."
In this essay, it offers an example of the ethic standard of the photo manipulation.
Once, the author took a photo for a company publication, but afterwards she noticed a small but clearly visible identifying mark for a certain organization on the clothes of someone in the photos. While the organization was not objectionable, the author's group realized that featuring it in a company photo might imply that their company endorsed that particular organization — an endorsement they felt would be misleading and inappropriate. But instead of removing the mark with photoshop, the author's group decided to conduct a new shot. The reason of their act was that they thought they didn't have the right to modify the photo since the logo represented a genuine affiliation the photo subject had intended to convey.

Even though it's commonly accepted that "violating the photographer's or subject's intent" is the unethical photo manipulation, the example above shows how rigorous the ethical standard could be applied.

Even though the essay focuses on the photo manipulation, the ethical standards offered in the essay are also applicable in other image manipulation. According to its strict unethical standard, the ethic issue of my altered picture can be very ambiguous. On the one hand, the original pictures are created for the sake of their respective religious faith, but I manipulated them to create a new meaning. But on the other hand, the chosen images have no identifiable creator and, in a sense, contain no actual meaning.


Walton, Susan Balcom. "The Truth Of A Single Instant" Focusing On The Issue Of Photo Manipulation." Public Relations Tactics 14.11 (2007): 25. Business Source Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 201

my favorites presentations

I was most impressed by Noah's Puppy Fashion. First of all, it was a great choice of topic! It had such a universality that easily intrigued every one. Secondly, his speech skill was impressive: calm, humorous, conversational and engaging. In PowerPoint, the pictures, musics and videos were designed in an aesthetically pleasant manner. Carefully timed animation showed his consideration of audiences' experience.
Overall, it was highly entertaining and technically excellent.  I hope his mom would like it very much.


In Haley's presentation on yoga, I could see many creative design. For example, in the Works Cited slide, the photos were arranged in a creative jigsaw pattern. Her speech was very clear and engaging. It was very nice that she let us know the yoga on campus. I would like to participate.

I was also touched by Daniel's dance presentation. The video she chose was contagious even. I could feel her dance passion.

Web search presentation

In the lecture, Chris presented how Google navigates the web, raised the problem of "filter bubble" and offered us tips on efficient search.

Google navigates the web by over two hundred factors, but most importantly, the result ranking depends on the quality of a webpage. Google decides the quality depending on the frequency that a particular page is linked to other sites.

Google, Facebook and other most popular websites conduct the personalized editing based on our browse history and many other astonishing details, such as where we sit and the computer we use. Such personalized editing is termed as "Filter bubble", which causes us to see only the things we want to see instead of what we should see objectively.

At last, he offered the tip on selecting the key words. For example, we could filter the result by adding "site: .edu" or "-site:.com", or using the word that sounds more academic-related.

Chris shared abundant information and all of them are very interesting. I was greatly benefited. Thank you Chris.

Reasons to hate PowerPoint

I had one bad experience with PowerPoint presentation in China. A distinguished astronaut visited our school and gave the lecture on the basic knowledge of astronomy. Astronomy is a topic that is very easy to evoke the interest with some fabulous pictures and interesting facts. But he designed his PowerPoint to be filled with words. The auditorium was giant and I sat at the last row, so I could see none of the words. He read through the PowerPoint with his thick Northern accent. 

The top sin of PPT is the design that is filled with words and charts. The audiences cannot decide their attention focus on the speaker or the large amount of information in PowerPoint. 

Secondly, the standard of PPT's quality depends on its use. In the case of the class presentation, the oversimplified PPT could not offer enough information that help students review. 

Thirdly, some speakers change the slides too fast and the audiences often cannot finish the reading in the slide before it is switched. 

 

Social, Legal and Ethical Issues on the Internet

While the ethics debate of image manipulation mainly centers on the technology, in this article, Suzanne fuels the debate by reminding us that the image itself is photographer's subjective depiction and manipulation of the fact. When the ethical issues reach this far, in my opinion, it seems that the motivation is the most workable measurement ethics. The following is one example in the article. "you see a vast field of beautiful red tulips, but one of the plants is dying. If you focus your camera only on the sick plant and exclude the healthy ones, you have not digitally altered the image, but you have warped the audience's perception of the scene. The resulting unretouched image is an intentionally misleading representation of the field of tulips." Even though the depiction is contrary to the fact, its ethical judgment depends on its motivation. If this photograph is taken for the artistic purpose, such rendering is deemed as okay. But if this photograph, for example, is used to put the farm in disrepute, it is certainly regarded as unethical.  Of course, the examination of motivation can be quite ambiguous in some cases. Anyway, like any other ethical issue, the ethical judgment of photo manipulation is often ambiguous, especially when we include the very act of photographing into the concern. But in any case, I think motivation is the most direct and relatively accurate way of examining the ethics.