Fiduciary duties and acquisition Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Fiduciary duties and acquisition - Case Study Example The outstanding securities in the company are also an important factor to take into consideration. What is the condition and classification of these securities? It is clear to note that the company is up for sale for the purpose of fiduciary duties. One of the most important aspects to note about the company’s history is the fact that the company has been growing. In the event the managers should think about the option of sale, they will be giving up on a good investment. The company has been growing to new heights every other year. This is evident from the stock market and the prices of shares. The growth rate of the company stands out with regards to the market and the internal relations. The firm has instituted an educational program for their employees that seek to address important issues with regards to the manner in which they conduct business and relate with other clients. Growth is one of the areas that display the company’s strengths. Through growth, the compa ny has been able to establish a good market for its products as well as improving its stability. With regards to technology, the company has an extraordinary portfolio. The company’s competencies have been aligned alongside the needs of the customers. The company has a wide variety of customers and continues to increase its customer base through the provision of quality services. The applications provided for by the company range from cyberspace and undersea to outer space and improved military systems. Some of the services provided for by the company include global security, health information systems, missile defense systems, command and control systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, advanced radar systems, large scale intelligence information systems, civil government and public safety information systems, high energy laser systems, and satellites for a wide variety of missions. Through these services, the organization has been able to establish one of the largest client bases through an extensive market. This provides for the growth of the company as well expansion of the operations being conducted by the company. One of the strengths of the company is the manner with which it addresses future expansion. The company is defining future systems through assessing their underlying technologies. The company is focused on addressing the next generation security needs. Through innovation, the company has been able to work on improving their current aerial systems. The company is working towards the development of the future generation of secure and unmanned aerial systems. These advancements are also focused on the establishment of the long range bombers and the space radar systems. The company can be able to shift the course of the organization through preventing the hostile offer. The hostile offer is concerned with the acquisition of the company through the cash considerations. The relationship that has been established between the company and its clients i s also important in the analysis. The company has set up various ways through which the clients are able to communicate with the company’s administration. The company has also ensured that relevant measures are taken to ensure that communication within the different departments and divisions is made efficient. The relationship between the employees and the employer is maintained at high standards. This ensures that the management has an easy time managing

Arab Isreal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Arab Isreal - Essay Example The roots of the conflict can be traced back to the late 19th century in which there was a rise in national movements, including Arab and Zionism nationalism. Zionism, a Jewish national movement, was seeking sanctuary when they sought to establish a Jewish State in Palestine (Seger, Tom, pp26). The mandate for Palestine was a historical League of Nations document. It contained the Jewish legal right of settling anywhere in western Palestine between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan river. Palestine became a trouble spot of competing territorial claims and also political interest by the early years of the twentieth century. While World War one was underway the British high commissioner, Sir Henry of Egypt corresponded secretly with the patriarch of Hashemite family and governor of Mecca and Medina. He convinced them to lead an Arab revolt against the empire of Ottoman aligned with Germany against Britain and France with the promise of the establishment of an independent Arab state (Price, Randal, pp20). In 1921 the British divided Jordan into two: the Emirates of Transjordan and the Palestine Mandate. Arabs were angered by Britain’s failure to fulfill the creation of an independent Arab state. The situation was most complicated in Palestine because of the promise to support the creation of a Jewish national home by the British. The Palestine Arabs opposed the British Mandatory because it threatened their aspiration for self-rule. Moreover, the massive immigration of the Jews threatened their position in their country. Clashes broke out between the Arabs and the Jews in 1920 and 1921 whereby roughly equal numbers from the two communities got killed. The Jewish National Fund purchased large portions of land from the absentee Arab landowners leading to their eviction. The displacements led to increasing tensions and violence between the Arab peasant tenants and Jewish settlers (Haiduc-Dale, pp34). According to the

Can the media influence politics?

Can the media influence politics? Can the media influence politics? If so, how? If not, why not? There are numerous academic theories as to the relationship between politics and the media, and whether or not one is a dominant partner greatly influencing the output of the other. Some purport that the media hold extraordinary amounts of power in the political arena, however many other believe that the power they wield is in fact minimal (Newton Van Deth, 2009). What cannot be disputed is the idea that the media and its audience are interdependently connected; the media will alter their message to suit a specific audience, while the public are more likely to invest in media which reflects their viewpoints. Generalisation is something which should be avoided when discussing the media’s relationship with politics, as while the term media traditionally may have been used in reference to newspapers and radio or television programmes, (Newton Van Deth, 2009) it now encapsulates social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. There are those who may argue that media simply represe nts the political views of the public, and while that may be true in the cases of social networks, many may challenge its truth in relation to mass media news outlets. In this essay I will attempt to conclude myself as to the extent of influence media has on politics, and evidence how I have come to that conclusion. In the UK, the link between media and politics is undeniable. For a major newspaper to alter its political allegiance is a sizeable change, which would be expected to dominate all forms of media. For example the decision of The Sun, Britain’s most widely circulated newspaper and therefore the focus of my study, to remove its 12 year support for Labour in 2009 created national news, and ultimately forecast the downfall of the Labour government. It is worth noting that The Sun has supported the party that eventually forms the next government in the last 7 General Elections; something which suggests that The Sun hold great influence over the political opinions of their readers. However, in 1997, 2001 and 2005, the Conservative vote was not as effected as one may imagine, with an average32% of Sun readers saying they would vote Conservative through that period (Ipsos MORI, 2010). While this research may suggest that The Sun is a newspaper which will ruthlessly alter its allegiance in order to be on the winning side of an election, I would argue that this is not necessarily the case. In the 1992 General Election for example, The Sun had been consistently anti-Labour and Kinnock, including their infamous ‘If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights’ headline, despite the polls suggesting either a minority Labour government or a very slim Labour Majority. The attacks on Kinnock in the final days of the 1992 campaign were widely regarded as responsible for Labour’s unexpected defeat (McKee, 1995), and even Neil Kinnock himself announced in his departing speech that ‘the Conservative-supporting press has enabled the Tory Party to win yet again when the Conservative Party could not have secured victory for itself on the basis of its record’ (Whitney, 1992). This would be used as an example for the theory of agenda-setting, whereby a media outlet has an opinion which it pushes upon its view ership, and attempts to influence which issues are considered important. Agenda setting is achieved by attaching priority to certain stories which may reflect the opinion which the media outlet wishes to push – in this instance the opinion that a Labour government would have been bad for Britain. Another example of how the mass media have exerted a great influence over British politics, and politics in general is the growth in the publication of scandal within Westminster. Prior to the Profumo Affair in 1963, the media and the public very much stuck to the idea that the private lives of politicians should be exactly that; private. The great public interest in this story however, meant that this affair was the watershed of political scandal, with journalists taking ever further measures in order to reveal the next big scoop. Albeit not immediately followed by a huge stream of revelations, the boundaries of privacy in the lives of politicians had been broken by the media and have not been the same since (Stanyer, 2012). This could be said to be an example of priming with, in the 1990s especially, the scrutiny over the dealings of Conservative politicians from the left-wing press leading to an environment whereby Majors administration was seen to be one full of sleaze and mistru st. This was achieved with revelations such as the Cash for Questions scandal and the backfiring of John Major’s Back to Basics campaign. This is priming as rather than directly stating the conservative ministers were untrustworthy, the media simply dripped out stories to highlight this way of thinking (Newton Van Deth, 2009).The mistrust of Conservatives created by the media environment of the 1990s is perhaps best characterised in the result of the 1997 general election in the historically safe Conservative seat of Tatton, in which the Cash for Questions tainted MP Neil Hamilton lost out to an independent, Martin Bell, standing on an ‘anti-sleaze ticket’ (Mann, 1999). The coverage of scandal can also be used in an argument to suggest that the media has little influence over political thinking. Those who believe in the reinforcement theory which states that ‘mass media can only reflect and reinforce public opinion, not create or mould it,’ (Newton Van Deth, 2009, p. 196) would point to the relatively recent shifts in what journalists publicise in relation to scandal in politics. While prior to the millennium scandal was often focused on the private lives and sexual misdemeanours of the political class, as such behaviour has become normalised in open society, the media has taken less of an interest in it. The public have gone from being shocked by behaviour that may be considered immoral, or not ‘Christian’, to now being shocked by primarily criminal activities. This has directly led to the kind of journalistic research which resulted in the Expenses scandal in 2009. The enormity of this story reflects the moral leanings o f the British people in the 21st century, and was a story picked up by media outlets nationwide – all of which will have held different agendas. Some may say that this proves to an extent that the media cannot control or influence, but merely just publish information which will reinforce public opinion. On a more international scale, it is difficult to ignore the way in which social media forms and revolution have gone hand in hand, specifically in the Arab Spring. It is not a recent idea that the new media of the late 20th and 21st centuries would create new dimensions from which politics can be influenced (Poster, 1995). In Egypt, ‘cyberactivism’ first came to existence in2004, and offered an alternative to the state-controlled media; allowing people to express opinion unpopular with the government. From 2008 onwards, in the shadow of a global economic crisis and an increasingly repressive government, there was a growing number of protests in which a key role has been played by new media forms (Khondker, 2011). It cannot be questioned that social networking was a pivotal player in the organisation and publicising of the protests across the region. One reason for this was the state control of traditional media, which left social media as almost the last voice of the pe ople. On a ground level ‘Facebook was used to schedule the protests’ and ‘Twitter to coordinate’ (Khondker, 2011), and then following on from this traditional media was utilised to present the uprisings to an international audience who in turn supported the uprising. In this case, and similar ones across North Africa, new media held great influence over politics. It mobilised opposition groups, allowing them to build a group identity as well as coherence. The influence that such new media can exert over politics in times of revolution and uprising should not, however, be overstated. It is important to point out that for such events to unfold, certain revolutionary conditions and the inability of the state to react to the actions of the people must be present. In this sense the media is merely a tool of the revolution, not a predetermined necessity for a revolution to occur (Khondker, 2011). Personally I believe that the media, both new and old, does not have a monopoly over the thoughts of the people and instead just provides them with a voice from which their ideas can be spread. The fact that revolutions have occurred throughout history in times before social media, such as the French and Cuban Revolutions, tells me that new media is more of an enabler than a driving force behind such events (Himelfarb, 2011). To conclude, I believe that the influence of the media over politics depends greatly upon the political situation in the region that it is being published. In more politically stable areas, such as the UK, while the media may have a certain agenda their consumers are likely to only access and take note of media that reflects their personal views. Mass media must cater to a certain readership in order to be sustainable as a business, and therefore cannot obviously attempt to mould public opinion. This is evidenced by the fact that in all post war elections but 1, the party with the greatest media support has formed the next government (Butler Butler, 2010). Despite this, the media can play a vital role in influencing politics, as displayed in the aforementioned Arab Spring. I believe this is a sign of the future, in which conventional media will play a comparatively small role to that of social media, in Africa and beyond.

The Discovery of Ardipithecus Kadabba, the Oldest Hominid :: Anthropology Essays Paleontology Papers

The Discovery of Ardipithecus Kadabba, the Oldest Hominid During an excavation in the middle Awash Region of Ethiopia, Haille- Sellaise unearthed six hominid teeth. These were at first thought to be the fossilized teeth of Ardipithecus Ramidus. The teeth have now been determined to be from the late Miocene, and those of Ardipithecus Kadabba. These are the oldest hominid remains found, to date. Upon earlier digs in this region between 1997 and 2000, Haille- Sellasie discovered an earlier tooth and fragments of an arm bone. These remains were first thought to be those belonging to â€Å"Ardipithecus Ramidus Kadabba, a subspecies of a younger hominid† (Science Daily). However, after the further recent teeth discoveries it has been decidedly evident that these belong to Ardipithecus Ramidus. The hominid has enough evidence to be its own species rather than a subspecies of Ardipithecus Ramidus Kadabba, as earlier thought. This could possibly mean that â€Å"The new fossils show the most primitive canines ever found among hominids† (Science Daily). Much can be told about the lifestyle of an animal through the wear and acquired shape of their teeth. In the case of Ardipithecus Kadabba this implicates that this species may be the first divergence from the chimpanzee line. â€Å"In the apes, the upper canine is continually honed against the lower third premolar to keep it sharp. Human canines lack this function† (Sanders). What is gathered from this information is that the teeth of Ardipithecus Kadabba may be that of the oldest known hominids, and the first to branch off from chimpanzees. Also an implication may be that â€Å"the newly evolved hominids were living in radically different, less competitive social structure than seen in modern chimps† (Sanders). The sharp canine would probably be used to injure, and in fights between males in hopes to impress females. In today’s chimps the fact that Ardipithecus Kadabba (as closely related to chimpanzees as it is) lacks this feature is an indicator of this . The Ardipithecus Kadabba is thought to be a bipedal hominid. â€Å"Bipediality involves a large and complex set of anatomical traits and is not a dichotomous character† (Haille- Selassie, Suwa, White). The fact that these hominids began to walk on two feet may be attributed to an increasing male role in carrying off spring as well as collecting food.

The Effects of Evolving Technology on Business Industries

The only thing in this world that is constant is change. This is a pretty well known saying which existed as long as I can remember. Looking back 50 years and more from today, I can recall how we used to tackle in class about how people have lived centuries ago. Globalization is the result of humans’ endless search for improvements and technological innovations. It is an integration of economy, labor and technology all over the world, even across international borders. This movement has increased the flow of capital, goods, competition and labor across borders which, in turn, had deeply changed the true meaning of citizenship. Today, the upsurge of developments in technology has an undeniable effect on how organizations function within and with other institutions. For an organization, its success and failure greatly depends on how the organization was structured to work. The drive to improve peoples living pattern is still the same drive or factor which triggers international firms to globalize their operations and with that, today’s latest technology makes the company’s and consumers life easier It enable companies to reduce cost by using powerful equipment and machineries while consumers can have easier access to the newest products in the market. The evolution of a new technology poses both threats and opportunities within the industry dynamics and alters the competitive forces. Industry leaders face the possibility of losing their number one spot and being replaced by new entrants and underdogs (because barriers to entry may be lowered). Therefore, technology transformations may provide major shifts in industry dynamics. Depending on its organizational capabilities, it may be good or bad to make drastic adjustments to the existing organization when a disruptive innovation occurs. Disruptive change occurs so intermittently that there is no routine response to them. How to adjust its new product development process depends on the organizations capabilities. Capabilities are its resources, processes (how they transform resources to products), and corporate values. While resources are adaptable to change, processes are not as flexible, and values are even less flexible. Therefore, when a disruptive technological change takes place, a company must look to its capabilities. If the change requires a tremendous amount of financial resources that the company does not have, then they obviously cannot invest in the change, on the flipside, if a large capital firm faces the same change, the investment in the disruptive technology may be so small that it is not worth their more valuable time. The same scenario goes for processes and values. Large firms may be so large, that altering their processes to suit a change may be too burdensome whereas smaller firms may have a much easier time making adjustments in their processes. In addition, it is more likely that a smaller firm’s values may be more flexible for disruptive change than large companies whose longstanding values are not easily adaptable. To overcome the natural inertial found in most large organizations, managers may create new structures within the organization where new processes can be developed. This involves taking out employees with the required capabilities and drawing a new boundary around them. When the organization’s values may not be compatible with the new processes, firms may create a whole new business venture which is wholly owned by the firm but located in a new location with the people and other resources necessary to create an environment conducive to the new process. And last, when a firm doesn’t have the supporting values, resources or processes for sustaining a new process, it may acquire another firm which does. Several factors may impact particular stages in the evolution of a new technology. For example, technological advances, changes in what consumers want or need, and changes in regulations may trigger a technology evolution. In addition, industry transformations often feed of environmental changes. However this necessary transformation, once triggered, does not actually begin until managers notice this need and act upon it. Once acting, managers seek to experiment, and this experimentation deeply impacts the industry as it helps shape what the new industry structure will be. Consequently, as experiments fail, the number of firms in the industry generally is cut in half, but occasionally may increase. An industry’s response to a new technology determines when and how the technological transformation will occur. Without managerial insight and decision making related to the technology, the current industry structure will persist. Managers are essentially the ones investing in these new technologies and they choose how and when to market them to the public, and therefore have ultimately the initial control over the transformation. If the industry as a whole does not respond favorably to the technology, they may not choose to invest and market it, therefore stunting its evolution. On the contrary, if they respond favorably, it helps accelerate the evolution of the transformation. If the industry as a whole is indecisive meaning some favor some do not and some are on the fence, the transformation may only see moderate growth, and depending on which direction opinions are swayed (for or against the technology), the transformation may be completed or the evolution may never meet its peak. One of the first innovations of technology was the mainframe system and it was during the 1960’s that computers and such started to impart in organizations and firms. The classic ways of hierarchal management systems started to disintegrate during these times. Through technological change, globalizing the operations of an international company could put up a plantation where they can reduce their labor cost. Not denying the fact that different people from different countries have different tastes, international companies could also personalize their products according to the consumers or markets preferences without eliminating their standards and trademark. Before, information control was basically handled by those in managerial positions in a linear manner according to rank. With these systems of technology, information was handled as such that company transparency is relatively existent for those who can get hold of certain information. The onslaught of developments in technology has triggered organizational structure alterations. These changes can be illustrated by considering two key variables: the location of information and the location of decision rights in the organization (Brynjolfsson E. and H. Mendelsson). With the innovative technological systems today, important information can now possibly be available to all employees or workers in an organization at all level. Before, information handling and privilege was limited to the persons that directly handle them. Now, the responsibility of handling information is left to information technologists or technicians. The technicians then put data or information into databases which are accessible to all components of the organization For example, an organization can have a website, regularly maintained and updated by professional information technologists. Here, employees, managers and customers alike, can log on to the website and access whatever information they needed. Furthermore, having websites is also a great advantage since helpful feedbacks are easier to get from both customers and employees. The growing need for technology innovations paves way to strengthening certain industries in a corporate world; like data management services, computer engineers, information technologists, software designers or engineers and so on and so forth. Although there are still organizations or companies that are hesitant to use information technology, a growing number of organizations are opening to the possibility of restructuring their organizations to accommodate the privileges of using the modern information systems of today. Seeing as technology innovation not only saves time and money; it is also efficient and very flexible with respect to the organization that opts to infuse it in their existing structure. Not only does it revolutionize an organization from within. Through the substantially used World Wide Web, organizations can communicate and cooperate with other organizations in a faster, more efficient and cheaper way. Today, with the use of virtual offices, it is possible to close deals and agreements from participating people around the world without physically meeting each other. Nowadays, as more organizations focus on the importance of information flow, organizational structures continue to change into more complex systems.   As a result, there is also a continuous drive to make more improvements and advancement in the field of technological innovation. Nowadays, laptop and desktop have been swamped by new connectivity options. There are various of USB devices like Digital cameras, iPods, PDAs, FireWire, thumb drives and MP3 players; with current technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and infrared (IrDA). With all these growing popularity of mobile gadgetry facilitating flexible working, evidently employees could work on the move. Endpoint systems today are easily available. They are user friendly and normally come with more than one feature. With all these conveniences, it also means that employees could be carrying around large amounts of sensitive information unaware of the potential risks. Not only can confidential data be lost, employees could also unwittingly introduce malware onto the network while uploading work from portable devices. However, together with this mobility in work, come various viruses which will bust your files as well as your gadgets. The influence of technology made a very big impact in the lives of people of today’s generation as well as totally changes the definitions of some of the world’s necessity, comfort and luxury. Whether it is a thing or a hobby, the identification of these classes has been change as time goes by. A car which was once called a luxury has been changed overtime and has now become a necessity. Televisions which was once only owned by royal families and other prominent people has now become a household item of which it already has become a necessity for it is where people get ideas of what is happening around them. Even though cars and televisions made living mush more accessible than before, the public is increasingly concerned about global warming and the negative environmental impacts of vehicles. (Clean Cars Alliance) Simple living as it is, our grandfather’s grandfather would ride on horses, plant trees and vegetables, raise cows, pigs and chicken, living under one roof with a family, sitting warm in front of the fireplace. These are the few comforts that men used to acquire. Back then, when a person owns a car, another home, have jewelries, it has been said that the person had lived luxuriously. But today, when technologies have changed, some of the past decades luxuries had become today’s necessities such as cars, cellular phones, different gadgets. Not only material things are affected but also of a man’s way of living. In, conclusion technology impacts should be seen as they truly are and not covered up by the media or industry, and even if they are individuals should be educated enough to realize the positives and negatives. If a company wishes to pursue becoming the industry technological standard, they must first be aware of the competitive strategies they can adopt to increase the probability of success. First, it is important to understand the need for a strong installed base. The installed base is the amount of customers/users of a particular piece of equipment or product that is necessary for the technology. Increasing the installed base for the technology is key, because a large installed base means there will most likely be a greater availability and widespread use of compatible products/software/applications. If the installed base for your technology is large and there is a large availability of applications or widespread use of compatible products, then your technology is another step closer to becoming the standard. With that, your technology is more valuable to consumers since they can use it in more places. A greater installed base, more available compatible products and providing greater value to the consumers leads to greater demand for the technology. As this continuous cycle keeps increasing the demand for your technology, it is well on its way to becoming the industry standard. A manager should ask several questions. First, it is important to know if a technology standard is needed or even desired in the industry. Second, it is important to perform market research to learn what customers want or need, this will help make the technology the standard if it satisfies the customer. Third, it is important to understand the market as a whole paying particular to competitors. Pursuing a technology standard makes sense for a firm when there is no current standard and one is desired by the industry. In addition, for some companies, becoming the industry standard may be essential in maintaining their leadership position and ensuring their existence in the long run.   There are different avenues that one can receive formal and informal education dealing with technological literacy, but there is always room for improvement, much like with technology itself. Going back to the saying that the only thing in this world that is constant is change, we understand that change is inevitable. And just like the billiard balls, it is change which moves people to experiment and innovate, making the world more comfortable and luxurious, yet complicated. Change, constant as it is, has the power to move, improve and change lives. Where men once lives only with necessities, change have been able to make men of today experience luxuries and comforts by making it today’s necessities. With this, the luxuries of the past has been a need of today, making the luxurious living from the past a more simple and yet more challenging living of today REFERENCES Brynjolfsson E. and H. Mendelsson.â€Å"Information Systems and the Organization of Modern Enterprise†. Center for Coordination Science. June 1993. Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Center for Coordination Science. 19 December 2006 Clean Cars Alliance. 23 November 2006 < http://www.cfenv.org/air/cars/index.htm> â€Å"Organizational Structure†.Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 18 April 2006. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 19 November 2006 .      

Life and Works of Gregory Crewdson Essay

Gregory Crewdson was born in Park Slope, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. As a teenager, he was a member of a punk rock group called â€Å"The Speedies† that hit the New York scene and sold out shows all over town. Their hit song â€Å"Let Me Take Your Foto† is a signal of what Crewdson’s true calling would be later in life. The same song was used by Hewlett Packard to advertise its digital cameras. In 1985, Crewdson studied photography at SUNY Purchase, New York. He proceeded to get his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University and taught at Sarah Lawrence, Cooper Union, Vassar College and Yale University where he has been on the faculty since 1993. Crewdson is represented in New York at the Luhring Augustine Gallery and in London by the White Cube Gallery. His listings of selected exhibits of his works alone cover more than two pages. Crewdson also has three photography books entitled â€Å"Hover† published in 1995; â€Å"Twilight† published in 2003; and â€Å"Gregory Crewdson† published in 2005. The last was a collection of his works from 1983 to 2005. Today, Gregory Crewdson continues to work on his craft and he continues to teach because â€Å"teaching is ideal for an artist because he gets to learn what the next generation are doing, what they’re reading, what they’re listening to, and to talk about form and composition†¦. We end up talking about everything else -galleries, the market. Everything but the art itself. † There wasn’t a lot of material on Gregory Crewdson’s transition from being a member of the band to being a serious and celebrated contemporary photographer. However, in an interview conducted by Ana Finel Honigman for Kultureflash, the photographer-artist revealed that his photographic themes and influences came from varied sources such as his father’s work as a psychoanalyst to his fascination with films especially those made by Alfred Hitchcock. He also stated that he is influenced by Orson Welles and Cronenberg. Furthermore, Crewdson revealed during the interview that he is fascinated by all films irregardless of genre, but that his fascination seems to be more with the lighting and â€Å"ambience† of the theatre as a controlled environment and outlet for the film as a work of art. Looking at his works of photography, Crewdson have the same â€Å"cinematic† feel and a pervasive feeling of gloom or foreboding. Gregory Crewdson also mentioned that â€Å"You can never get away from your self as an artist or as a person. Invariably themes and issues always resurface and make themselves evident in some form or another†. In stating this, Crewdson have confirmed some of his audiences and reviewers’ comments that his photography seems to reflect portions or aspects of his life – which he actually denied in the interview despite the statement. He insists that he feels protective about his work while still in progress often showing it to only a handful of people but once an exhibit has been decided on this body of work, then he totally disengages or makes himself â€Å"unattached† from his photography. Looking at some of Gregory Crewdson’s work, you can find series of photographs with the same theme or even title that has continuity and differences in light and perspective. Like his work entitled â€Å"Brightview†, â€Å"Long Clumps of Beetles†, â€Å"Maple St. †, â€Å"Man in Woods† and many others. His work â€Å"Brightview† has a woman whose back is turned to the audience but she seems to be holding a light towards the road. This is a two series photograph and has two light perspectives to it. The same goes for â€Å"Long Clumps of Beetles† and â€Å"Maple St. . With â€Å"Man in Woods†, I saw four photographs of the same title but again, it has the same subject but photographed in different lighting staged for the effect and perspective or angle. Gregory Crewdson has retained the â€Å"cinematic† feel of his photography from his first published work in 1995 through 2005. He makes use of elaborate and â€Å"pre-fixed† sets that reminds his audience of Hollywood type productions – only instead of film, the image and moment is captured in still photographs. In another interview with The Guardian, he said that all his photographs were shot during twilight; he revealed that â€Å"My photographs are about the moment of transition between before and after†¦ Twilight is evocative of that. There’s something magical about the condition. † The effect of his twilight shots amidst the backdrop of a set that blends in the dark hues of the night with semblances of dark purple, and dark blue, the effect is almost eerie and oftentimes, surreal. The emotion is always embedded with tension and the message one gets from looking or trying to make sense of his photographed images is one of an unfinished moment. It is the same feeling you get when you are watching a cliffhanger movie and then suddenly the movie stops a few seconds before the resolution of the conflict or tension. Gregory Crewdson’s photographed images also leaves a lot to the audience’ own personal imagination and interpretation. He iterated that he purposely leaves his images â€Å"unresolved† because these are moments that he sees and remembered from days past. These are â€Å"captured memories† that was kept hidden in his memories somewhere but that he could only remember flashes and specific instances – but not the entire picture, hence, the â€Å"unresolved† feeling of these images. The artist-photographer wants to keep it that way. In his photograph series entitled â€Å"Maple St. †, there is a car in the photograph that always seems to be in the middle of the street with a door wide open and lights are emanating from both within the cab and floodlights from the electric posts. In â€Å"Maple St. 1†, the car seems to be semi-parked in the road curving to the right. There seems to be a figure in the car and one of the doors is wide open. The tires on the back seems to be flat, and as always, darkness is creeping in and the glow of the light coming from the electric posts gives a creepy, foreboding feeling. There is a house nearby but there is no road ahead – the image looks likes a dead end street and huge trees dwarfs the car. It is actually remindful of scenes from serial killer movies when somebody is about to be killed – the â€Å"just before† moment. The tension is pervasive and the mood, â€Å"hanging†. The same tension appears in the 2nd installment of the â€Å"Maple St. series† of photographs. The angle and perspective is more from the right angle and the glow or flood of lights seems to be coming from above – like in Steven Spielberg’s movie, â€Å"The Close Encounter of the Third Kind† when the alien spacecraft was hovering about and lights flooded the side of the house. The same light effects were used and the feeling is surreal and anticipating of what is about to happen – again, the â€Å"just before† moment is captured in the image. Another photograph series that can be compared to the â€Å"Maple St. † series is that of â€Å"Man in the Woods† series. I saw series numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4. The 1st photograph of the series comprise of what appears to be the middle of the forest with a round white light emanating from the upper half of the woods glowing like a bright moon and its bright rays covering the entire image through the tall tress and foliage. There is a structure on the right side of the picture that appears to be aluminum or piece of reflective metal and it reflects back light from it. A figure is perched on the third step of a ladder facing the square aluminum or piece of metal. The figure is situated at the right hand corner of the picture. There is also one tall fallen tree that cuts across the image. Meanwhile, the 2nd of the series shows a different angle of the figure – still perched in the 3rd step of the ladder, but now the perspective is from the left side or middle left of the image, the square piece of aluminum or metal is still there. What is absent here is the moon like glow from the bright light in picture #1. The fallen tree is also present and the angle of the entire image is a bit further away from picture #1. There is a fog-like atmosphere in the entire image. The 3rd installment photograph has a perspective further away from the bright lights and the whole scene. Nowhere can you see the figure anymore or the square aluminum or the ladder. Not even the broken tree is present. It appears to be taken much further away from the 1st and 2nd images but it seems to be approaching these images. The 4th image consists of a car with its headlights on (bright) and the it illuminates what lies ahead of the car – which are mostly abandoned boxes surrounding a dug portion of the earth in the middle of the woods. The wood clearing which was illuminated (somewhat) by the headlights appear to an area that has been dug – it resembles a would be grave. The car is surrounded by tall tress and the thick foliage barely permits any other light to come through. The same creepy feeling is there and sense of foreboding that something is about to happen. All four installments of the series appear to be flashes of a movie scene. One take or scene after the other in the case of scene 1 to 3. But the fourth image seems to be a totally different scenario – although still in the woods, and the same â€Å"unfinished† or unconcluded† feeling is left with the viewer. Gregory Crewdson, like the personalities that have influenced him – Steven Spielberg and Cronenberg, Alfred Hitchcock and Twilight Zone, David Lynch and his psychoanalyst-father, all have left their indelible mark in the world of art and their specific or chosen realm. Gregory Crewdson refuses to be categorized into any particular genre. Lastly, his influence can also be continuously reappear as seen in his former students who have now created their own brand of thematic photography. But his mark and specific signature of â€Å"twilight themed† photographs have already made an indelible and distinct mark in the contemporary world of photography throughout the world.