Seeing 1 & 2

1. How would you describe Peter Menzel’s photographic portraits of ordinary people’s food in different parts of the world to someone who has not seen them?

Peter Menzel’s photographic portraits depict numerous different settings in which people live today simply by showing us the different types of foods people eat in different parts of the world. It also shows us just how poor some countries are compared to some of the richer areas of the world.

What specific words and phrases would you use to characterize what you see in the photographs?

Contrast and ironic.

Which details- for example, textures, colors, objects, shapes, and setting –stand out the most to you?

The colorful vegetables and fruits in the Guatemala picture stand out the most to me because they seem to have the most abundant amount of naturally grown food that has not been processed, which is what makes it more colorful.

Choose one of Menzel’s photographs. What reasonable inferences can you draw from the observations you have made about this photograph?

The pictures of the food from Chad allow me to infer that the country is in a state of poverty because of the substantially large difference in the amount of food they have compared to the other countries.

What story does the photograph suggest to you?

It suggests that Chad is a third world country that has seen many hardships, possibly the cause of natural disasters, isolation, or outside forces continuously changing the government of the country as they take over.

In what specific ways is your understanding and appreciation of each photograph enhanced by Faith D’Aluisio’s accompanying summary?

It gives me a broader understanding of where these pictures are coming from and what they mean, allowing me to understand and appreciate the pictures much more.

2. Choose two of Menzel’s photographs, and compare and contrast your observations about each and the inferences you draw from these observations.

The United States picture and the Guatemala picture are common in that they both are very abundant in the amount of food they have. However, they are extremely different in many ways. For one, in the Guatemala picture you see many more fruits and vegetables while in the American picture you see more meat. In the American picture, the majority of the foods are processed whereas in Guatemala they seem to all be home grown. What I can infer from this is that Guatemala has a much more healthy, natural diet then America because of the lack of processed food they have, however America has access to a wider base of foods, which allows them to get more meats and sweets then Guatemala.

How do different foods represent a “full plate” in these photographs?

In Guatemala, the majority of their food consists of fruits and vegetables with very little meats and other things, whereas in America a full plate consists of majority of meat and very little fruits and vegetables.

By highlighting different physical setting and sociocultural contexts? Different economic conditions? In what specific ways are the scenes and contexts similar?

They are similar in that although the diets are vastly different, they still have an abundant amount of resources and food.

In which instance do you find D’Aluisio’s text more informative and insightful?

I find it most informative when it tells me what everything costs in comparison to the other countries, as well as how much money is spent on different types of foods. It gives us an insight as to how much each country spends on average for an every day plate of food in the different countries as well as which food group is relied most heavily on for sustenance in different countries.