Look Kids Big Ben

In the last few weeks, people used photographs for their digital story critiques.  I thought they did a nice job, and I mentioned I wanted to critique a picture myself.  It definitely seemed harder than a video based on Jason Ohler's criteria, but this week we are focusing on Lankshear and Knobel's types of remixes.  This week a photograph works well.

I have literally spent about 3 hours now looking and laughing at various remixes online (via Know Your Meme, Worth 1000 and Political Remixes).  I couldn't decide what I wanted to critique, there is just so much out there!  I had challenged myself last week to critique a photograph so I decided to go the Photoshopped remix route.  After more searching I came across a contest for beginners on Worth1000.com that was appealing.  The contest was called 'Out of Place'.  There were 12 entries and the contest ended a week ago.  I chose a contest for beginners because I thought it would be nice to see what the rookies can do, being one myself...even the beginners impressed me!

At the time I chose my favorite, I didn't know who the winner was.  Being an avid National Lampoon's Vacation fan, I obviously had to choose the picture with Big Ben! 

Looking at Lankshear and Knobel's literacy dimensions of remixes, I would say this image and artist successfully meets most of their criteria.  I chose three literacy dimensions to focus on and gave each dimension a score out of ten: 

1. Knowing how to import an image into an image editor- 10/10
2. Understanding how to use a range of tools within the image editing software to crop, blur, smudge. erase, color match, etc.- 7/10
3. Understanding how to create a recognizably meaningful juxtaposition to an outline space- 10/10

I would say this picture meets the criteria of #1 and #3.  When looking more closely at the picture, I think the artist could have made Big Ben blend a little better and not stand out as much.  Maybe he/she could have blended the colors so the tones are similar. 

I reviewed the rest of the entries and discovered "Big Ben Misplaced" got 4th place...here is the winner:

It wasn't until I looked at the winner's picture that I realized Big Ben could have blended in more, like this artist did with Stonehenge.  The colors blend and the 'out of place' element 'fits in' better.  Here are all the Out of Place entries in the contest.  Which one was your favorite?

Works Cited:

New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Social Learning Ed by Colin Lankshear and Michele Nobel. McGraw-Hill Education 2008.