Russian Veteran

I see a very old man in the picture. According to the clothes he wears he is WWII veteran and he served in the navy. He touches his cap in salute. His hat has a white color but shield is dark blue and he has a red star, crest and yellow piping that signify a navy officer.  His face is covered with wrinkles. His age is probably about eighty years old. He is turned half profile and you can see one ear which is rather large. His nose is a bit long. He had small eyes that are close to his nose and they are deep- seated. The eyebrows are gray and bushy. The mouth is tightly close and the corners of the mouth are turned down. His facial expression and figure project dignity. His dark blue jacket covered with bunch of medals. The man has three stars on each of his shoulder boards. Three stars in combination with the anchor that is clipped to his jacket defines him as Admiral of navy. He is wearing the Russian navy uniform with Russian medals.

The image gives a sense that person on that picture got dressed for the very special event, and the visual clues are the bunch of medals, neat look, and navy uniform. He is very proud to be at the place he is at. He salutes to somebody so it seems that he has at least couple of other people around him. She background is blurry but I would suggest that he is rather outdoors. The golden color corners and anchor are symbols of navy service, bunch of medals suggest that he was highly rewarded for his services.

LIST OF SYMBOLS:

 Medals- sign of a high reword

Anchor- belongings to the navy

Hat signifies navy officer or higher as well as crest and piping

Shoulder board with 3 stars (high rank) in addition with 3 stars indicates Admiral

The Skin I Live In –blue ray cover

    The main characters of the move The Skin I Live In-  are the representational images here.  Both of them are the focus point and the attention getters. The image on the left is the image of Antonio Banderas his face and body are very tensed. The image of the woman on the right combine’s representational abstract and symbolic levels. The eyes, nose and body below are the parts of representational image; the skin is transition from representational to abstraction/symbolic (there is something unnatural about these lines). Her body and face are very tensed similar to Banderas’s, the mouth’s line is harsh and eyes show determination to deal with whatever bothers her. The skin around the eyes is depicting her real skin but musk on her face is already pictures abstraction. It corresponds with the title of the movie and visually it says to you “the skinlike musk”. Symbolically it whispers the word “hiding”. Design promises you a mystery and gives you sense of an intrigue and f possibly something unexpected by involving all three levels of meaning.

 Abstract
The main abstract objects here are musk, and skin of the woman. When you look at these lines below the shoulders you can say that it is not real scars you are looking at. It is abstraction of something like a stitch or drawing. Those lines work very well with the tensed bodies to embrace the sense of something uncomfortable. Even if you didn’t read the movie preview it tells you that genre is probably something thriller- like. Musk is also incorporate to that uncomfortable feeling that image sends you. The shape of the muck is not organic it doesn’t repeat the exact shape of eyes and nose. The color is also different from her skin color. The mask looks like it made plastic or silicon and contrasts with realism of her eyes. Eyes that emote “disturbance” and “discomfort”.

Symbolic
The box case for DVD has the logo

that in a very straight forward manner tells you it is Blue Ray and therefore high quality of the video. The musk derives its symbolic meaning from abstract.  It delivers even deeper message of something that hiding behind. Musk is a known symbol of hiding the face if you think of direct meaning, and hiding the truth if you think of it figuratively.  

 All of three meanings work and interconnect very well.  The type also has static characteristics to it as muck and stroke has the same color like the musk. All of it combined create unity and sense of duality (layer underneath of other layer).

This poster attracted my attention in Europe as one of the best representations of what to expect from the move without reading about it seeing a preview. It conveys powerful abstract and symbolic message in combination with photographs of the actor and actresses that movie presents. 

MEANING 2 - Blog Exercise

This photo captures the very touching and emotional moment between father and daughter, when they dance on daughter’s wedding. The father trays to hold his tears. The picture is very realistic. It shows the motion of dance. Cloth of the woman suggests that she is bride and flowers and father's shirt make us believe that wedding takes place in Hawaii. A photographer focusing on foreground and we can see figures’ intricate details,but the father’s facial expression more than anything tells as that it is representational image.

Unlike first image these masks are portray emotions but we can say that they are not real but exaggerated. The eyes unlike in real life have geometrical shapes the wrinkles are supper deep and every facial expression looks over- expressed. The less complex image the more easy to read it . Anyone who look at these masks can easily tell what king of emotion they project. It makes them abstract and universal.

These images are symbolic because they are in their simplest form  and the most universally readable of all.Unlike in case of abstraction there are almost no room for interpretation.