Lavanderia
Posted by Gerardo Alba on March 7, 2014
Filed under Uncategorized
According to Introduction to Documentary, the observational mode emphasizes a direct engagement with the everyday life of subjects as observed by an unobtrusive camera (31). After viewing Grey Gardens and Sweetgrass in class, I knew I wanted my project to focus on the observational mode. I was interested in how they both made extremely different subjects entertaining to watch while only observing. When I was thinking of subjects to observe, nothing came to mind but luckily I had to laundry that day. While at the laundromat I just kept thinking of how frustrating doing laundry is. After waiting for my clothes to wash I realized that I felt relaxed because the only thing I was focused on was my clothes. It made me think about the other people there and if their time here was one of frustration or enjoyment.
Instead of taking pictures that day, I decided that I wanted to see the difference between the laundromat during the day and at night. I imagined that at night there would be less families if there were any people at all. When I visited around 11 am, I found that there were quite a few people, but they seemed to all be gathered on one side of the laundromat, leaving a lot of unused space. At first I wanted to interact with these people and mix the expository and observational modes, but I quickly realized that I was too shy to even look them in the face. I did however manage to ask an employee for permission to take photos which I was grateful for. During the day, the people seemed pretty focused on the task at hand and rarely moved around the place. The children also seemed to stay still which I found rather odd. As I took photos, I did feel uncomfortable because I could feel eyes look up at me, but no one came up to me and asked what I was taking photos for.
At night, I was surprised that there were still families washing clothes. I visited around 10:30 pm, which I thought was pretty late for being there. Even though there were less people at this time, they took advantage of the space and were spread out. I also noticed that almost every person had more things to wash than their day counterparts. Once again I could feel eyes watching me but only one person actually interacted with me. The woman who interacted with me did not even care about the photos. The only reason she came up to me was because she was selling tamales there as a side business. The children here seemed to move around more and even interacted with other strangers who were doing laundry. Since it was pretty late, I was surprised to see how easily the parents let their children move around. It made me think of the place as a safer environment for some reason.
While taking photos I was thankful that no one asked me any questions but I found it weird that no one seemed to care. If someone were taking photos of me I would ask questions but luckily these people did not and I was able to purely observe. I enjoyed the night visit more, but there seemed to be a calm/relaxed feel during both of my visits which again makes me see doing laundry as a method of relaxation instead of a necessary frustrating task. Using the observational made, I was pleased to gain a new perspective of place I once thought of as dreadful. It makes me think that if I observe other things in my life as closely as I did this, then maybe an entirely new view on things can be achieved.
I included a link to a PowerPoint that includes all of the photos you see above. The pictures here have been scaled down so if you want a more detailed look at the pictures, just click the link (hopefully it works). Lavanderia
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5 Responses to “Lavanderia”
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whoffman on April 27th, 2014 5:45 pm
I enjoyed looking at Gerardo’s first documentary mode because I felt he goes above and beyond the observational mode and invited the audience into his cognitive thought process while taking pictures at the laundry mat. As a result, Gerardo expresses his emotions of that present reality when he tells the reader of his shyness in not wanting to interact with the people at the mat. In doing so, his written portion of the mode goes further than the observational mode as he is not just a fly in the wall, but alerts the audience of his feelings and insecurities at that moment. This was very interesting for me as I became more engaged in his analysis than the pictures themselves.
Barbara Garza on April 28th, 2014 5:59 pm
Gerardo, I really enjoyed taking a look at your pictures. I love black and white pictures and even more when they are telling me a story. I really did recognize something behind the pictures, I saw another point of view to look at a laundry room. It is kind of artistic in a way and the fact that they are all black and white, gives it meaning of probably a long time ago or a consistency and neatness. I do agree with you that this pictures emphasized a direct engagement with everyday life. We do need to clean our clothes and keep everything neat, but this analysis was to see whether there was more people in the day vs. the night. And I did liked that there were differences between the day pictures and the night pictures. I enjoyed how you proved that there is another way to looking at a room that people do not enjoy going to. I think it was a good observational mode. Thank You !
jbushon on May 5th, 2014 7:53 pm
This is a great piece. I think your thoughts on the situation accurately reflect one of the goals of observational film making. Instead of presenting a forced message, it almost allows the viewers to draw their own conclusions. You talked about the focus of your visit being to simply observe and focus on the clothes, and I think that is a great lesson in being intentional. I think observational documentary forces intention because the viewer pays attention to details and very simply the situation at hand. Thoughts are allowed to flow freely instead of being directed toward a specific message like they can be with other modes.
ggonzala on May 8th, 2014 8:20 am
Gerardo, I thought this was a very cool Doc Mode and exemplified the observational mode quite well. I thought your choice to go both during the day and night helped your reader understand the atmosphere of the lavanderia and get a better perspective on your point of view. Your essay complimented your photographs well, as it gave me a better idea of what your personal experience was like. It was interesting that people acknowledged your presence but did not question it! I too found that in my observational project people tend not to question someone with a camera unless they are extremely curious. Good job on a very interesting project!
nalmeid on May 8th, 2014 8:42 am
Gerardo, first of all I want to let you know I love the pictures in this photo essay. They are so interesting and they make this common and unappealing place look beautiful in its own special way. As far as the documentary mode it addresses, I would like to say that I feel that it goes beyond the “fly-on-wall-“ perspective. Once we read the essay and we know your (filmmaker’s) relationship with the process of taking the pictures, we (the audience) feel the participatory side of the piece. Overall, I think this was well done! The work you put into it is easily seen!