Saturday, March 14, 2020

The Brownie Camera Changed the Future of Photography

The Brownie Camera Changed the Future of Photography The next time you point your smartphone at a sunset, snap a group of friends on a night out or position yourself just so for a selfie, you might want to give silent thanks to George Eastman. Not that he invented the smartphone or the myriad social media sites to which you can instantly post your images. What he did do was set in motion the democratization of a pastime that prior to the turn of the 20th century  was solely reserved for professionals well-trained in the use of heavy large-format cameras.   In February of 1900,  Eastmans  company,  Eastman Kodak,  introduced a low-priced, point-and-shoot, hand-held camera, called the Brownie. Simple enough for even children to use, the Brownie was designed, priced, and marketed in order to bolster the sale of roll film, which Eastman had recently invented, and as a result, make  photography  accessible to the masses.   Snapshots From a Small Box Designed by Eastman Kodaks camera designer Frank A. Brownell, the Brownie camera was little more than a simple  black rectangular cardboard box covered in imitation leather with nickeled fittings. To take a snapshot, all one had to do was pop in a cartridge of film, close the door, hold the camera at waist height, aim it  by looking through the viewfinder at the top, and turn a switch. Kodak claimed in its advertisements that the Brownie camera was so simple they can easily [be] operated by any school boy or girl. Though simple enough for even children to use, a 44-page instruction booklet accompanied every Brownie camera.   Affordable and Easy to Use The Brownie camera was very affordable, selling for only $1 each. Plus, for only 15 cents, a Brownie camera owner could buy a six-exposure film cartridge that could be loaded in daylight. For an extra 10 cents a photo plus 40 cents for developing and postage, users could send their film to Kodak for development, eliminating the need to invest in a darkroom and special equipment and materials- much less learn how to use them. Marketed to Children Kodak heavily marketed the Brownie camera to children. Its ads, which ran in popular magazines rather than just trade journals, also included what would soon become a series of popular Brownie characters, elf-like creatures created by Palmer Cox. Children under the age of 15  were also urged to join the free Brownie Camera Club, which sent all members a brochure on the art of photography  and advertised a series of photo contests in which kids could earn prizes for their snapshots. The Democratization of Photography In just the first year after introducing the Brownie, the Eastman Kodak Company sold over a quarter of a million of its little cameras. However, the small cardboard box did more than just  help make Eastman a rich man. It forever changed the culture. Soon, handheld cameras of all sorts would hit the market, making possible vocations like photojournalist and fashion photographer, and giving artists yet another medium with which to express themselves. These cameras also gave everyday people an affordable, accessible way to document the important moments of their lives,  whether formal or spontaneous and preserve them for future generations.

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Analysing the effect of long working hours in Hong Kong's clothing Research Paper

Analysing the effect of long working hours in Hong Kong's clothing retail industry - Research Paper Example This paper will examine the current state of the work of employees in the clothing industry and will show how this is currently affecting those who are subjected to long working hours and the inability to take off more time for family. There will also be an association with how the longer working hours change the effectiveness of the organization and the ability to create sustainable development because of individual complexities from the longer working hours. 1.1 Statement Problem and Rationale The problem with long working hours in Hong Kong is now considered at an epidemic level, specifically among the apparel industry. The demands that are a part of the competition have created the specific problems with the industry because of the amount of competition and the need to remain a priority among Western demands. This is combined with the long working hours becoming socially and culturally accepted to stimulate the economy without having political recourse or labor intensive laws tha t change the main attributes within the industry. The working hours are intertwined with the individual, family, organization and overall apparel industry, making the issue complex with finding policies and standards among a culture. The physical and mental health of employees is first affected. However, the long working hours often don’t change because the inability to produce in a highly competitive environment may become detrimental. The image, reputation and the high performance levels expected then begin to affect the company. This complexity makes it difficult to carry through with specific standards and policies that would demand ethics sand the reaction within the culture provides several problems that are a part of the long hours. The need to alter the standards and understand the detrimental effects of longer working hours is one that is intertwined with the individual outcomes, family problems and the corporate changes that don’t provide the correct affiliat ion with building into the economy with ethical considerations in mind first. Understanding how each area is affected by the longer working hours and what this leads to can then help those working in the fashion industry to begin to change ethical standards and find different alternatives to compete with human resources. 1.2 Investigative Questions The problem with the working industry is one which is defined specifically by the inability to change the needs of employees who are expected to work long hours. The investigative questions asked in this study include: 1. What are the impacts of long working hours on individuals and families in the Hong Kong clothing retail industry? 2. What are the main influences of the long working hours on organizations in the Hong Kong clothing retail industry? 3. What measures can be taken to prevent and relieve negative effects of LWH in Hong Kong clothing retail industry? 2.0 Literature Review The problem with long working hours is one that begins by impacting the individual then moves into the associations with the organization. While higher amounts of productivity are expected with longer working hours, there is also the impact that is made on the organization that

Monday, February 10, 2020

Managing Across Cultures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Managing Across Cultures - Essay Example Diversity in workforce members can lead to improved organizational performance and effectiveness (Pires, Stanton, and Ostenfeld 2006). Therefore, in order to function better with diverse colleagues, there is a crucial need for multicultural employees to be aware of the cultures that they are working with as well as have an appreciation for their values and beliefs, attitudes toward conflict, and personal experiences (Soderberg and Holden 2002). The increased reliance of international companies on a culturally diverse workforce should drive these organizations to improve their members’ understanding of how certain processes such as training or communication can positively contribute to the success of a multicultural labor forceAlthough ethnically diverse teams play a critical role in the success of companies due to the flexibility, receptiveness, and resource utilization that are expected of them (Marquardt and Horvath 2001), the management of cultural differences and conflict has become a challenge for many international organization. Diversity in culture can bring about misunderstanding, adverse relationships, and weak performance, thus the need to effectively manage geographic distances, facilitate control and coordination matters, establish strong communication, and maintain team consistency. Because of this crucial need, numerous studies, even early research such as that of Hofstede and Trompenaars, have been carried out to explain cultural variations in the working environment and the successful management of these differences among employees. Theories on Cultural Dimensions Through my experience as international director, I have learned about the essential components behind a successful expatriate assignment. Theories of cultural dimensions from well-known researchers such as Hofstede (1980) have been of good use in explaining why people are culturally different from each other. National culture plays a crucial part in understanding a workforce tha t is ethnically diverse as explained through Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensions including power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long term orientation. Power distance indicates the acceptance and expectation of the society, especially the less powerful individuals, that power can be unequally distributed, thus representing inequality. Anyone who has had experience in international studies can point out that all countries and societies have demonstrated inequality in wealth and power distribution, although some are more unjust than the others. Individualism refers to how people are integrated into groups; for instance, individualist societies tend to establish loose relationships among its members and each individual is expected to attend to himself and his family while collectivist ones are likely to stay committed to such relations and demonstrate unwavering loyalty to each other. Masculinity indicates how gender roles are distributed; menà ¢â‚¬â„¢s values significantly differ from those of the women

Friday, January 31, 2020

The tension rises and falls Essay Example for Free

The tension rises and falls Essay The Italian-American Carbone Family live in a poor and humble area, just over Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan. Although American the Carbones still have their Italian values and live a Conservative Italian lifestyle. This play is in part about family values, and how two different cultures clash when Catherine and Rodolfo fall in love. But on a more perspective view, it is also about a tragic hero Eddie Carbone and his love for his step-daughter Catherine. This LOVE is not a father to daughter love but a husband to wife love, a love that is not meant to be there. A love to powerful for Eddie to give up. Eddie, the main character of this play is a longshoreman from a conservative background in Sicily. He lives with his wife Beatrice and their step-daughter Catherine. Where he came from there are very firm social and moral issues. The scene that I am going to study is when the Carbone family and their to guests from Sicily have just eaten their evening meal and are having a pleasant conversation at first, but underlying tensions soon begin to build up. The beginning of the scene originally suggests a happy family atmosphere, though we wonder if Eddie is over-protective of Catherine. But recently Beatrices cousins are coming to stay illegally in America over from Sicily. The two cousins arrive, Marco and Rodolfo. Marco simply speaks of the poverty back home and Rodolfo not a typical Italian by his appearance or personality talks about how he can sing and plans to buy a motorbike. Rodolfos singing of Paper Dolls delights Catherine, who obviously is attracted to him. But soon this relationship develops, much to the distress of Eddie who himself is in love with Catherine. He can not express or admit his love as keeps them repressed. The scene starts with a nice after dinner conversation but tension is beginning to build up. The argument starts when Eddie raises the point about submarines, slang name for illegal immigrants. I betcha theres plenty of surprises when those guys get back there, heh? He said this to provoke Rodolfo because he knows that Catherine has her eye on him and to bring up the issues of American values and how wearing a shawl doesnt mean that a girl is strict. But to Eddies disapproval the comment failed to offend Rodolfo.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Times Arrow by Martin Amis Essay -- Times Arrow Martin Amis Essays

Time's Arrow by Martin Amis The human being is an analytical creature. From scientists to philosophers to star-crossed teenaged lovers, the human is internally motivated to understand the world around him. That world provides countless puzzles for the human to solve, whether these puzzles lie in the forests of the heart, the laws of mathematics or the annals of history. However, some of the most unfathomable aspects of this world have been entirely created by humans. The Holocaust is one of the most unfathomable events in human history. Countless documentaries, pieces of literature, psychological analyses and films have explored the topic in an attempt to understand exactly how humans could commit such terrible atrocities against one another. Time’s Arrow, by Martin Amis, initially attempts to answer this question by exploring the life of a Nazi doctor. To do this, he separates the narrator’s consciousness from his mind, re-living his life backwards. In doing so, Amis tries to reverse the laws of entropy, to heal by un-creating human destruction. However, as the narrator (the doctor’s consciousness) eventually finds, reversing time’s arrow does not make the Holocaust fathomable. Therefore, in Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis suggests that humans will always manage to increase entropy, despite the reversal of time and the laws of the physical world. The term â€Å"entropy† describes a â€Å"measure of disorder or randomness in an isolated system† (Dictionary.com). According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the entropy of an isolated system will always increase over time. Therefore, disorder and randomness are constantly increasing. Amis drew from both this law and the work of the physicist A.S. Eddington in writing T... ... undo the chaos that we had created. Yet in Time’s Arrow, entropy is not just never truly reduced, it is ultimately increased. Thus, Amis argues that entropy’s effect on humanity is an inherently human creation. We create our own misery, our own disorder, our own chaos, regardless of the physical laws and the direction in which time is flowing. Therefore, in Time’s Arrow Amis suggests that humans are inherently entropic creatures, so much so that entropy as it pertains to us is less of a physical property, and more of a human characteristic. Bibliography Amis, Martin. Time’s Arrow. London: Vintage, Random House, 1991. â€Å"Entropy.† Dictionary.com. 2004 http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=entropy Menke, Richard. â€Å"Narrative Reversals and the Thermodynamics of History in Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow.† Modern Fiction Studies 44.4 (1998) 959-980.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Analysis Of Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman Essay

This American drama was first premiered in 1949. It was an instant success and it also won Arthur Miller a place among one of the best American playwrights of the 20th century. It was a satirical attack on the Great American Dream of prosperity and material wealth and had also challenged the ideals of the past 160 years that constituted such dreams. This exemplary play by Arthur Miller is a modern masterpiece, in which the inherent conditions of human existence and a fierce battle to fight through it, is lived by the protagonist Willy Loman, that finally ends in a tragedy called, death. Willy Loman is a disillusioned sixty three year old man who has trouble distinguishing between past and present, and reality and illusions. His illusory beliefs draw an iron curtain before his sensibilities and he refuses to see the reality of his abject conditions. His tragedy lies in the fierce determination to fight an impossible battle and to seek facile solutions to his severe economic problems. In his relentless pursuit of an unrealistic dream Willy Loman submerges himself in a complete disengagement from reality that brings an end even more tragic than his life. Being an irrepressible old man he never really evaluates or understands the false and incomplete values of a venal American society. He fails to understand the vacuous idea behind the ‘Great American Dream’ and his limitless hope. A similar theme had been portrayed in ‘The Great Gatsby’ (Fitzgerald) where Gatsby was corrupted by money and dishonesty, and the Great American Dream of happiness and individualism disintegrates into mere pursuit of wealth. Although Gatsby had the power to turn his dream into reality, the character of Nick discovers that both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream is over. In the same way, Will’s persistent struggle against the forces of entropy in his life leads him to neurosis, and finally suicide. Theater is an imagined world, inhabited by imaginary characters, but tragedy strikes one and all, and the nature of tragedy is to hit our deepest consciousness and invade our sensibilities with its prolonged stay. Robert A Martin says in his essay, â€Å"The Nature of Tragedy†: â€Å"What the performance of a play gives an audience is less a set of ideas, propositions or abstraction about life and how to live it than what Arthur Miller has called ‘ a felt experience’, the imaginative sharing and participation in the lives and actions of imaginary characters. † In support of what Robert A Martin says, Willy Loman’s character pulls the audience along with its chain of tragedies and leaves one with a feeling of acute distress, but more than â€Å"a felt experience† it also gives one an insight into the inherent realities of human tragedies. In â€Å"Death of a salesman† the audience watch the tragic collapse of a single individual and the tragedy of the entire family, right before their eyes. The audience leave the auditorium with a whole new set of lessons in life and as Martin says â€Å"how to live it. † In his article Robert A Martin also elaborates on the vicarious influences of a tragedy, on the person, who watching it with a detached sense of belongingness. He says, â€Å" Theatre is the art of the possible† and as we read the play we believe that Willy Loman’s tragedies are not unbelievable or fictitious although his character was an imagination of the playwright Arthur Miller. As Aristotle said that Tragedy is something that evokes the emotions of pity and fear in the presence of an action of a certain magnitude. Willy Loman also falls into the trap of tragedy and as the nature of tragedy is, it brings about a fear in him. Willy tries to run away from that fear and refuses to accept his misfortunes and his failures. It mostly happens with dramatic experiences that our thoughts and emotions often correspond with those of the characters we watch in a play –we weep, smile and get moved by their performances. It continues to stimulate and engage us directly in our social, moral and political questions. The audience too goes through an inveterate interchange of pity and fear inside his mind as he watches a human being go through a painful hell, which is in Miller’s view due to his own obduracy. â€Å"Death of a salesman† is not just a tale of tragedy that happens to a broken, exhausted man, but is also a caustic attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success with no regards to principals and values of life. Willy Loman became a household name after the play was released and became a profound example of a tragic life, bowed down by struggles to cope up with a capitalistic society. Willy Loman’s tragedy does not lie just in his miserable economic condition, but also in his misplaced sense of pride. In the play he takes loans from his neighbor Charley to make both ends meet, but refuses to accept the offer of a better job from him. His warped sense of pride comes in the way of his chances to improve his conditions. His refusal to accept reality is a tragedy bigger than his dismal life, and it exasperates his son Biff with whom he had a troubled relationship. Willy refused to accept that his sons are also ‘failures’ such as him, and in order to make their lives better he falls into a trap of further hopelessness. A man’s descent to failure is horrendous to contemplate. Whatever line of work you are in, we are all salesmen, selling our products, our services, our selves†. Says Will’s meighbor Charley , in a line that crystallizes the anxiety of uncountable men everywhere, not just in America: â€Å" And when they start not smiling back. † –employers, partners, customers- â€Å" That’s an earthqauke. † ( Kilnghoffer, Undying Salesman, 1999). Willy Loman suffered from a feverish and unrealistic hopefulness and guilt of having failed his sons, and also the refusal to accept certain facts of life. The neurosis that set in him affected his life, and also him led to suicide. His death was perhaps a bigger tragedy than his life because it proved to be the final blow to the grief stricken family. Due to his persistent stubbornness he believed the notion that one is often â€Å"worth more dead than alive† (Miller, Pg76) and commits suicide, so that his family gets the insurance money and his sons lead a better life with that money, than he did when he was alive. Willy did not realize that insurance money is invalidated when a person commits suicide. As Biff says at the graveyard, â€Å" He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong. † In this play tragedy is on two fronts. One is ‘literal’, when Willy dies after an unrelenting wrestle with his fate, and another is a ‘symbolical’ death, that was the death of the American Dream, or ridding of a false notion of perfection. Willy’s guilt, his idolization of his sons and his constantly haunting memory of his brother turns his life into a pitiful tragedy and he lives through it all with an immature sense of unreality. In trying to project himself as an ideal father and salesman he plunges himself into an illusory world where he never really grew up. â€Å"I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have- to come out number –one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him. † (Miller, Death of a Salesman, Act2) The misfortune of Willy was that he tried to retrieve his lost dignity and his family’s love and also a magnified image of himself as an ideal salesman and father, on the last day of his life, and loses all. His complete disengagement from reality is what the tragedy is all about. It evokes the pity and fear that Aristotle spoke about in ‘Poetics’ (330 BC). The character of Willy Loman is befitting the concepts of Aristotle’s’ Tragedy. â€Å"True to life† (realistic), â€Å"consistency† (true to themselves): meaning, once a character’s motivation and personality are established these should continue throughout the play. â€Å"Necessary or probable†: meaning, characters must be logically constructed according to the law of ‘probability or necessity’ that govern the actions of the play. Finally, â€Å"true to life† and yet more beautiful (idealized, ennobled). Death of a Salesman has that true to life aspect, depicting the fact that any middle class man with limited means, would get into the delusionary world of dreams and aspirations of more wealth and the terrifying darkness that lies coiled beneath such unrealism. Consistency of the portrayal is apparent in Loman’s relentless pursuit of an elusive life. The necessary probability is the fact that such a dogged belief in illusionary world nearly always creates a graph of downward slide in a person’s life. True to life, is the condition of tension that is life and human existence. Death of a Salesman is a modern masterpiece that celebrates, as Chris Bigsby expressively states, â€Å" the miracle of human life, in all its bewilderments, its betrayals, its denials, but finally and most significantly, its transcendent worth. † (Poet, 723).

Monday, January 6, 2020

Singapore s Success As A Nation Essay - 1199 Words

In my opinion, Singapore’s success as a nation refers to how Singapore has managed to climb from third world status to first world status today and also how Singapore has managed to handle the continued unrest to maintaining the peace and stability it has today. Hence, I agree to the above statement that the two factors have successfully built a Singapore nation and will continue to be fundamental to Singapore’s future success as a nation. Sustained economic growth has successfully built a Singapore nation as it enables Singapore to have sufficient resources to develop in terms of education, infrastructure, society, health and many others. It also had a major part to play in the transition of our third world to first world status. On the other hand, the presence of a strong military has also successfully built a Singapore nation as it helps Singapore to protect its own sovereignty and control its internal security. With sustained economic growth, comes low unemployment rate and this has helped with the development of the society at large. After the separation from Malaysia, Singapore had a high unemployment rate of about 10%. Over the years, due to sustained economic growth, Singapore has been able to lower the unemployment rate and maintain it at 2% from 2011 to 2014. With more people employed, a sense of belonging is cultivated in the people as they feel that they are able to contribute to the society and the country at large. Also, as monetary issues are less of aShow MoreRelatedSingapore s Future Success As A Nation Essay1237 Words   |  5 Pagesbuilt a Singapore nation. These two factors will continue to be fundamental to Singapore’s future success as a nation.† Discuss. 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