Volume 124 Issue 109
kansan.com
Friday, March 2, 2012
THE FINAL NIGHT
ENTERTAINMENT
Portrait of the Artist The classic art of the self-portrait on display at KU. //KELSEY CIPOLLA
Each photo on the wall shows a slice of Alex Moore's life. One documents her brief obsession with Kit Kats. Another reveals her love of goats. In some she looks like a model while in others she appears to be a scared young girl.
Moore's photos, all self-portraits, are currently on display in the Kansas Union Gallery. It's the first public display of her work and an exciting step for this junior from Green, who only picked up a camera a few years ago.
Images of landscapes and still-life never appealed to her, but looking at photo streams on the popular photo sharing site Flickr, she noticed people taking self-portraits. She was amazed by their work and started trying to take her own photos using her mother's basic point-and-click digital camera.
After a period of trial and error, Moore started to get a better feel for how to take a 9ftter picture of herself. She also discovered the emotional benefits of photography
"It's become something that's almost therapeutic for me, to do a self-portrait," Moore says. "If I'm really angry or stressed, I'll take a portrait and I'm totally ok."
In some of the photos, Moore looks like she belongs in the pages of a fashion magazine, her long, red hair perfectly coiffed as she stands in the middle of the field. Other shots are more intimate. In "Layered," she turns her bare back to the camera to show peeling skin, the result of a particularly nasty sunburn.
"Every photo I take, I remember so vividly the time I was taking it, the exact day." Moore says.
She tried to capture that sense of the moment in the captions she wrote, strings of simple, child-like sentences describing what she did or felt the day the photo was taken. "That day I realized I really want to take photos that make people feel something — under their skin," reads the caption for "Layered."
It was the way Moore captured such specific moments and used them to "tell mini-narratives with each frame" that made the photos stand out to Bea Kilat, coordinator of the Student Union Activities cultural arts committee. The group runs the gallery, where four or five local artists are chosen to showcase their work each semester.
PHOTO BY ALEX MOORE
This year, the gallery has featured the work of several photomedia students, including Moore. The photomedia degree program was established in 2008 and has attracted an increasing number of students, says Bryon Darby, an assistant professor of photography.
*Nest*, Jan. 2010. "That day I got a haircut and my mom had sewn feathers onto my sweater because I begged her to and she was nice because I am bad at sewing."
While he attributes the popularity of the program to it being new and novel, Darby admits there is also a more profound attraction for many people.
"Photography has this weird ability to reveal things you didn't know were there, whether those are things about yourself or things about the people or places you photograph," Darby says. "That to me is the strength."
Self-portraiture is nothing new in the world of photography, but there has been a shift in how people think about photography. Photos were once aimed to be objective and informative, but now more people are acknowledging that it is an inherently personal and subjective form of communication.
"One thing I always tell my students is the more personal it is, the more universal it is," Darby says. "The experience you're having relates to everybody and you become a stand-in for the viewer."
Many viewers are responding to the personal nature of Moore's photos. The gallery's guestbook is filled with students sharing their thoughts on her work, including Emily Jalinsky, a senior from Kansas City, Kan., who has visited the gallery several times to escape into the open fields and lush forests captured in Moore's images.
Looking at the photos, most of which were shot on the farm where Moore grew up, Jalinsky says she was able to step back from the chaos of her day and "take a deep breath."
"The personal titles were an integral part to the show, so in the guest book I did a play on them and wrote, "That one time I was in a gallery and smiled to myself," Galinsky says.
The Kansas Union Gallery is located on the fourth floor of the Kansas Union, next to the SUA offices, and open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m on weekdays.
SCHEDULE OF STUDENT SHOWS:
ALEX MOORE
NOW-MARCH 8
EMILY JALINSKY APRIL 2-6
WHITNEY MATALONE AND HALEY
FREEMAN
APRIL 9-13
H/KANSAN and Smoke.
After multiple cars were broken into as well as incidents at GSP and Corbin, cameras were placed in various locations on campus. The number of cameras on campus is not disclosed, for security reasons.
Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police Ralph Oliver said cameras are monitored at night by student security officers and cameras are added to campus every year. Since a string of criminal activity in 2005, The University of Kansas Public Safety Office has added surveillance cameras to campus in hopes to reduce the crime rate on campus.
"Right now we have cameras in every major parking lot, one of our long term goals is to get cameras in every parking lot," Oliver said.
"While we understand the importance of having cameras on campus as one component of safety on campus, it would be unrealistic to expect a direct correlation between the number of cameras on campus and crime rate," Goddard said. "The factors that affect whether a
ecuting them, Oliver said.
SEE CAMERAS PAGE 8A
According to Diane Goddard, vice provost for administration and finance, since the surveillance cameras were installed, the number of criminal offenses reported on campus has generally been declining since 2005. The statistics for 2011 are still being finalized and have not een released.
However, the cameras alone will not always prevent crime from happening.
"On campus, fast food places are faster and more convenient than healthier places," said Joseph Rorabaugh, a graduate student in dietetics, from Winthrop, Iowa.
and make sure to eat a meal or snack every four hours, which properly nourishes the body and helps people avoid binges.
Rorabaugh and Chapman agree students that should maintain a balanced diet to keep off the pounds and stay in shape. Rorabaugh recommends that a
But nutritionists say students should consider all their food options before choosing to eat fast food.
Chapman said students eat two to three times the amount of meat needed, and twice as much starch.
"We need those foods, but we're getting way too many of them," Chapman said.
Students should be as mindful of their snacking habits as they are of their meal selections.
"The most important thing for students to do is keep healthy snacks in the dorm room," said Deanna Mortiner, a graduate student in dietetics, from The Bahamas.
student's plate should consist of a quarter of vegetables, grains, fruit and lean protein.
When hunger pangs call during a late night study session, students should turn to healthier alternatives, such as string cheese, fruits, and healthy granola bars, Mortiner said.
Both Rorabaugh and Mortiner emphasized that students should take note of portion sizes.
Rorabaugh suggests asking yourself, "Do I really need to eat this all?" Filling a smaller plate or only eating one slice of pizza can make a thousand-calorie difference.
Beverage selection is also important. Red Bull and soda, especially grape and orange flavor, have high calories.
or a buffet,
Whether it's a large pizza
Mortimer also said students should try drinking a couple glasses of water before eating, as people can sometimes mistake
Alcohol also has a high calorie content. Some alcoholic drinks can have up to 800 calories each, Mortiner said.
CLASSIFIEDS 2B
CROSSWORD 4A
CRYPTOQUIPS 4A
OPINION 5A
SPORTS 1B
SUDOKU 4A
SEE NUTRITION PAGE 8A
Don't forget
- Keep healthy snacks handy, like fruit, string cheese, and healthy granola bars
Eat a meal or a snack every four hours to avoid binge-eating later
Eat breakfast, because it kickstarts your metabolism for the day
— Before eating anything, ask yourself if you really need to eat it
Drink water before eating
Avoid energy drinks, soda and alcoholic beverages, as they all have a high calorie count
unless stated otherwise, © 2012 The University Daily Kansan
Take pictures of your meals or keep a food journal
All day tomorrow at Wescoe Hall is the KATG Schulerkongress, a competition of German language and literature.
Today's Weather
Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain showers, koth winds, mostly clear at night.
0.
Come rain or come shine.