OrphanCrow

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Posts by OrphanCrow

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  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

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  OrphanCrow

  Alwaysbusy: Maybe my glasses are foggy, but does it look like there is a face on the right wall, next to the df'd woman?

  Yes, I can see what you see. It is very vague...but it does resemble a face. Ghostly.
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  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

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  OrphanCrow

  truthseeker: What an eye you have to see these subliminal messages !!

  Truthseeker, I have had years and years of practice and training in looking at images and learning how to dismantle them.

  What helps is an understanding of both the formal qualities and the processes involved in producing the image. When I first approach an image such as the one we are discussing, I remove myself emotionally and subjectively from the subject matter. I don't 'see' the message of the image overall - I try to block out the subject and look at placement, line, color, shape, form...tonal qualities, etc. And then I examine the subject. After that, it a continual process of a flipping back and forth between formal qualities and what the subject matter evokes emotionally and trying to tie that into both my own cultural understandings and the cultural understandings of the one who made the image.

  A cool trick that a person can do when undertaking the first step - examining the formal qualities - is to flip the photo and don't look at it from the right side up. Turn it around and upside down. Often, the subliminal images will 'pop' out of the image once your brain isn't occupied with what it can recognize easily.

  Hope that helps hone your discerning eye. :)
• 
  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

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  OrphanCrow

  Truthseeker, this might help - look on the chair back, in between the arm rests:

  
  

  sir82: Isn't her dress more or less the same shade as Monica Lewinsky's infamous "blue Gap dress"? Even if not the same shade, does "blue dress" recall that situation to mind anyway?

  I like that observation. For some people, yes...the blue dress might make them think of Monica.

  MuddyWaters, you just 'owned' that image - you own the power! Isn't dismantling and reconstructing image meaning fun? The power of the image is yours - the WTS can't own you anymore.
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  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

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  OrphanCrow

  Xanthippie: OrphanCrow mentioned that blue woman's dress has been shortened digitally. When I was in it was normal for women to wear skirts and dresses on the knee. Now having seen the pictures reproduced on here from Watchtowers it seems that JW women now wear clothes almost down to the ground.

  After some of these comments, and considering that I make the claim that this image was a photo taken years ago and then altered with tonal values and color...I now will amend that initial thought.

  You are right, Hippie, the skirt may not have been altered. In the 60s and 70s, the big struggle was to get JW girls to lengthen their dresses to mid kneecap. Of course, the fashion rage at the time was micro minis. The knee length was horribly old fashioned.

  The woman in blue would not have been out of place in the KH I attended during the 60s. I have photos of my mom dressed in a sleeveless dress at least that short at a summer convention in '63/4.
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  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

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  OrphanCrow

  You are welcome, Millie, and thank you for engaging with me in this life long obsession of mine - image making.

  I think my obsession stems back as long as I remember. As a little girl, the images in books 'talked' to me long before the letters lined up and made sounds. I have always been intensely interested in 'the image' and have made image construction and deconstruction my life's vocation.

  Of course, the text became powerful, and I have spent my share of time in obsessing about textual deconstruction. Like many here, I recognized that the WTS' manipulation of text was apparent and deliberate. After all, that is what the JWs are - a 'textual community', held together by text issued from the WTS. The text holds power - and the Word was God.

  But it is within the image that the language of power is manifested - it is the image seen in the past that we can bring most readily to mind. I can easily bring up the image of Adam in the garden from the Paradise book, or the heel crushing a serpent head, the field of skulls and the 4 horsemen, etc, etc. I remember each and every illustration in that book. But I cannot recall a full page of text from the Paradise book.

  And that is why I think that image deconstruction is such a critical part of deprogramming the WTS mind control. Once we gain control of the image, we can gain control of our brains again.

  This particular image we are discussing, and obsessed with, is fascinating - it has been through several processes to emerge in its present form, it was once a photograph, a tiny millisecond in time. And the alteration of the coloring has extended the time it portrays...we have past, present and future in this image.

  The layers of deconstruction in this image are many and complex.

  I already did think they were slightly manipulative and I thought some of it was bumblefous behavior and like a stopped clock -that still happens to be right twice a day, I thought they were just happening to get it right (the manipulation).

  I have given some thought to that, Millie. I have studied WT images for hours and hours, and tried to place them into an objective context - which is hard to do at times when the emotional attachment has a good grip.

  As a child, I used to think that the WT images well so well done. But, now I see the clumsiness in the execution of some of them. And I would not be surprised if that clumsiness is deliberate. It masks the deliberate manipulation that the propaganda image has been subjected to. It gives it an 'honesty appeal'. when, in reality, the image is anything but honest. If the images were too slick, people wouldn't trust them.
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  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

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  OrphanCrow

  Millie: Why didnt they make the girl leaving in the colored dress "more"?
  As in tighter dress, shorter, cleavage implied.
  Actually cleavage is implied even though it is a side shot.

  I think that by not altering her too much...it leaves room for the blue lady to be either or - a bad woman or a good JW woman - the image hits both levels. If she was altered much at all - she was given color but maybe not much else was done to her figure.

  Besides, I think that your following observation lends more credibility to the theory that the source image was a candid photo taken at a KH somewhere. The people in them are in real, KH poses.

  That poor woman on the left in the picture that is part of a couple is a sad sight.
  Flat chested with an underbite and an eager look on her face because she is being "recognized" (that would seem to indicate the man addressing the couple is a somebody ie; elder ((gag))
  And look! Her husband is noticibly better looking than she - so there you go aging single pioneering girls in your late 20s and 30s. You too can get "tall, dark and handsome" becaise they are looking for women who are "spiritual".

  You have just described exactly what you could see in a KH anywhere - I notice how she is standing slightly behind him, her shoulders bent submissively. To tell you the truth, I didn't peg her for being the polished guy in the center's wife - I just dismissed her as a late teen wandering around behind the two guys. But, now, with your description, of course she is the dude's wife.

  An image like this deserves to get a lot of attention. It is a powerful image and one that is designed -even if a bit clumsy in execution - to elicit an emotional response, rather than a rational one from the viewer. It is why propaganda images are powerful - they evoke emotion.

  Consider if this was presented in what i believe to be its original form - a candid photo. It wasn't presented that way. And remember that if this was a candid photo, this image was chosen - someone said - that's it! that one will say what we want it to.

  And then, the image was altered.

  And then, the photo was totally placed out of context to associate it with disfellowshipping, an act that distorted why the image was taken in the first place. Not only was the photo manipulated, its placement was manipulated.

  By deconstructing this image, the viewer gains power over it. The powerful image becomes an understandable object. It loses its ability to appeal to the irrational - our emotions - and instead we can objectively and rationally place it in submission to formal qualities alone. We gain control of the image by understanding it as much as we are able to.

  By the way, I am enjoying everybody's responses to this image. I like image deconstruction. It's fun.

  :)

  .
• 
  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

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  OrphanCrow

  Ruby: this pic is doing a lot of work cos the woman in colour is dressed the way sisters who work fulltimes dress dress at our meetings during the summer. Some elders' wives dress like that too. Is there an implicit warning to successful sisters to beware lest they fall?

  I absolutely agree with you, Ruby.

  it is another reason why this image is so powerful - it operates on several levels and the message adapts itself to whoever it is that is reading it. Of course the young, semi-zealous JW woman, who views this image could identify with the blue lady who is carrying the field service bag. The message to her is an emotional one, she is being told - don't forget being a happy little girl in the KH. Don't look outside that door - look back to being happy. Where? In the KH, of course.

  Pete-
  An entire case study could be written about this picture.
  d4g

  The image would make for a great source image to base a lecture, to a senior level university art history class, on "The Representation of Power Politics and How to Deconstruct the Propaganda Image".
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  21

  Top Cult Expert Steven Hassan makes statement about Jehovah's Witnesses

  by Watchtower-Free in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  thought this had to be made.

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  OrphanCrow

  Oubliette: --as far as I can remember--Hassan did not mention JWs explicitly in that book.

  
  

  Billybobber: Source for quote?

  Me too. Where is the source for the quote? Reference please.
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  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

  1. 
  2. 
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  OrphanCrow

  Okay, okay...I promise...I will sit down after this post.

  A poster had made the comment on another thread that if the WTS photoshopped images, that we would jump all over them. Well, I believe that the image that is the subject of this thread is a digitally manipulated photograph.

  Some posters have drawn attention to the dress and shoes of the blue woman in this photo. The WTS illustrators have given the woman some extra attention. The dress has likely been shortened by the computer technician because the hem is too straight - it doesn't fall naturally. I think the shoes have been changed - the size and placement are just a bit 'off'. A tiny bit - not quite right.

  Does the WTS manipulate and 'photoshop' images? Yes, indeed they do.

  
  
• 
  150

  Disfellowshipping Image

  by naazira in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this photo can be found in the april 15 , study edition article titled:.

  why disfellowshipping is a loving provision.

  just by looking at this image we can see how quickly the barrier between the congregation and former member is put up, after the announcement that this sister is no longer one of jehovah's witneses.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Sorry for talking so much...but I downloaded this image and have spent some time studying it these past couple days and now that I took another look at it, I have a few more things to say about it.

  I had mentioned the elders in my last post. In re-examining the image, it is possible that the one man in the center of the image has a 'elder' position. Notice how he is placed exactly center in the image. Even though he isn't the main subject, he takes center stage. Regardless, most of the men, including young boys (up and coming authority figures) are outside the frame.

  I also want to address the demon and the funny clown guy in center left of the image. I know that other people besides me will see the demon so I must as well talk about it now.

  I have given some thought as to the artistic processes involved in the making of this image and I believe that the source image is a photograph. Probably a candid photo that someone owned from years ago. Which would explain why the blue woman has a book bag - she did in the original photograph. It wasn't a staged photograph. Manipulated but not staged.

  I don't think that it was drawn by a human hand, unless you consider that the computer's choices are directed by a human. I think it is a digitally manipulated photograph and that it is the intervention of the computer that may be responsible for translating the tonal values in such a way that inadvertent 'subliminal' images appear.

  The 'demon head' appears right beside the little girl on the chair - to her left and on the chair back. I noticed the demon face right away - the contrast of the tonal values on the edge of the chair drew my eye to that area. I looked and there was the demon.

  I think the demon may have been a shadow from the arm rests, and how the computer has translated those tonal regions, through the process of scanning, and then through the transition into a 'drawn' image, has left those shadows in the shape of a demon face.

  I am not sure about the clown guy, but, digital manipulation of photographs often will distort certain ares of the photo. Maybe that is what it is.

  However, what I don't understand is this: why were those 'errors in translation' not corrected before the image was printed? Why would an artist, who could not help but see the same things I did, not say, "Oh my jehovah! There is a demon on the chair! I better get THAT out of the image." And "Oh my! Look at how that extra contrast draws an eye to that area...surely someone will see it...better change that quick!"

  There are only two explanations. One - the artists are incompetent. They lack the ability to know what it is that they are doing. Or two: they saw it and left it.