Band Blog Post.

Part Onee.

ISKL misson statement: The International School of Kuala Lumpur provides an exceptional education that [SILENCE] challenges each student to develop the attitudes,

skills, knowledge and understanding to become a highly successful, spirited,

socially responsible global citizen.

In this ISKL mission statement, adding the silence after "that" creates the tension and curiosity. When a reader reads this out-loud to a bunch of people, the effect of the silence adds the tension and curiosity. The people would start to ask questions to what the reader is about to say next and what is the ISKL mission statement is. The curiosity in this would come from the people asking the questions. The tension would be from the atmosphere that forms when the reader uses the silence.

Part Two.

Composers can create tension in their music by using an unexpected silence (void). Also by taking elements of music to create the silence. When composers takes away elements of music and add silence (void), this makes people start to ask questions. The release is when the composer gives back the elements of music that was taken away and stops the silence. This would give the people the answer and the release they needed.

The Black Spot

The Power of the Void- Band Assignment
I would call the title of the story “The Black Spot”. It gives an insight to the story and it creates tension and questions on people’s minds. This is like the beginning of the suspense and tension as well as the start to the story. “Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot…” this quote from the text is when the Hutchinson family opened up their papers to see if any of them has the black dot on their papers. I taste that everyone of the villagers was curious of who got the black spot; this was the moment when the intensity of the villagers was high. But after the villagers found out that Tessie got the black spot, a release occurred. There was no more suspense or curiosity and it turned into a relief. When I found out the end of the story was not given, questions starts to twirl in my head. Questions to what the ending could be. The mystery paper made me curious but since there was no ending to the story, I predicted that the mystery paper holds the ending. “Do not open until 5p.m and follow the instructions” I did not open the mystery paper at 5 because of the curiosity that makes me open it afterschool. By writing this, I am following the instructions on the mystery paper.

THE BLACK BOX. THE BLACK SPOT. THE BLANK PAPER.

The black box is the key to the ritual/lottery. This ritual or “lottery” is done every year by Mr. Graves and Mr. Summers. They made the papers and placed a black dot, then stuffed them in the black box. Whoever receives the paper with the black spot will receive the consequences.
The black ‘deadly’ spot sits on a paper and the unlucky villager that takes this paper will receive consequences. That unlucky villager happens to be Tessie Hutchinson. As a result of this, the villagers threw stones at her. This was the ritual/lottery that takes place every year as a tradition to this village.
The blank paper shows the other villagers luck of receiving a blank paper instead of the paper with the black spot. I predicted that nothing happens to those villagers and that they are safe.


After reading the ending to the story, there was still some tension and curiosity because the ending still seems mysterious and left unexplained. Instead of having the release of tension and curiosity, the author ends the story unexplained. My predictions were somewhat correct and somewhat wrong. 50-50. I feel the need to re-read parts of the story to get the mood of the story and try predicting something with that. Knowing other information’s about the story would have helped me make better predictions. Leaving voids in the story and exaggerating it makes the story mysterious and readers would ask more questions because of the unexplained voids. No title or author leaves the reader wondering more of what the author did to the story. His or her flavors and writing choices is unknown which gives the readers no information on what the author’s impact on the story. No ending cause a greater tension and curiosity as people are predicting that they would know the whole story. Text clues and foreshadowing gives excellent small voids that add up to the whole void of the story. The mystery paper that contains the ending made the final touches to this whole void assignment.

"A good picture makes us curious and makes us want to know more”

“If we look at the photographers whose work we admire, we see that they’ve found a particular place, theme, or subject, dug deep into it, and carved out something that’s become special. That takes a lot of time and a lot of work; it’s not for everyone. A great photograph really needs to say something about a person or give some insight into their life or how their life is different than yours and mine. A good picture makes us curious and makes us want to know more.” -Steve McCurry,

Steve McCurry is a photographer regignized worldwide from Philadelphia. He kick started his career in photography while working for a newspaper, then moved on to freelancing. Not only is McCurry a freelancing photographer, but a traveler as well. India was the country that touched McCurry’s heart. "If you wait," he realized, "people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view."- Steve McCurry. McCurry’s photos are famous for having connections with the chosen subjects and the people viewing the photos. Through his photos, I could see that McCurry has a passion of capturing the human nature as well as having connections. Human nature like the struggles, pain, joy and more that would appear in his photos. The connection of his subject’s eyes attracts people’s attention to look deep within the surface. A good example of this is the photo of the green-eyed Afghan Girl that stood out from all of his photos, and most likely one of the causes of his great success. What makes this photo so breath taking is the simplicity of the image. There isnt much of an expression on her face, so the viewer's attention is automatically drawn to her eyes.



On the photo:
Steve McCurry shoots such abrupt photos that leave viewers hanging around to dig into the meaning of the photos. When you first look at photo that there’s a young boy, holding a gun that is pointing at him. This would be the surface of this photo but there are lots of hidden things that I have to dig in order to read what’s hidden. The young boy’s face is the first step to find what’s hidden. Tears pouring out of the young boy’s eyes made me feel the need to comfort him and rub his tears away. The tears and the crying, for me, symbolize a lost hope. The gun in his hand captures my eyes and it is the second step towards finding the hidden meaning. This made me think that the young boy is having a hard time and this photo capture the moment when he’s about to give up on life. The gun symbolizes of losing faith. The young boy in this photo symbolize of all human beings (humanity). All these three things, the gun, tears and the young boy add up and equals to the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that all human beings (the young boy) have moments when their eyes would be pouring out with tears and a gun would stand along beside them. This type of moments is when human beings lose hope and faith in their lives and that the gun is the key to end the painful moment. I think McCurry wants people to look at this photo so that when this type of moments comes along, they shouldn’t lose their hope and faith. And that people should continue on their life rather than ending it and having regrets. After all we as human beings have one life to live.

Understanding McCurry’s works; travels, photography and personal life gives me an insight of digging beneath the surface to find the other side of life that hasn’t been noticed or touched. His photography made me connect with that other side of life of people whom I have never noticed. I learned that his photos make people around the world connect with each other and learn to understand of the difference and similarities with people living in different cultures. From learning this, I gained an understanding of how a great photograph tells a story of the people living in different cultures. It’s difficult to find that story as it is hidden beneath the photo. That is what a great photograph should be; digging up the surface to find the hidden meaning/story. A great photograph also attracts people’s curiosity to look for that too. These are some of the factors that makes great photos endure and last for decades.