Stranger in Me

The Mask to hide behind

In today’s world everyone is a walking mask. A walking mask with a story to tell, a walking mask that wants to be noticed, or a walking mask that wants to stay hidden. The mask, sometimes an unknown mask, can become an immense part of a person making them forget who they really are. Now, no longer just a stranger to a world but also a stranger to themselves. Photographs have an interesting role to play with these masks as they can be manipulated in ways that can further hide the mask or expose it. In Plato’s Cave, Susan Sontag expresses the world as a cave that’s view can be morphed through photographs. She expressed that “photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe” (Sontag 4). I found myself agreeing with Sontag due to the reasoning that everything she argued is heightened in today’s generation due to social media and all of the technological advances.

Humans have taken photographs since the 1800’s and since then the environment of photographs has evolved in an immense way. Today, there are pictures taken of everything from the sky to food to random people walking throughout the street. However, two types of photographs specifically are selfies and self portraits. A selfie is for the world to see and a self portrait is something personal that holds more meaning than what meets the eye. These two types of photos are similar in a way that they are both created or captured by the person in the selfie/portrait and thought goes into the production of both. However, they are different when considering the meaning they both hold. A selfie is typically taken through a phone camera by the person in the picture and there is with little to no meaning put into it except for getting the best angle or lighting. A self portrait is also created by the person being portrayed, yet, on the contrary everything done within the self portrait is done with a purpose that holds a deeper meaning.

A selfie is something much more common to me than a self portrait. Selfies have become a major part of today’s social media. They are made to appease the standards of social media and are only posted if they are to the best standards of the person in the photo. They are taken at the best angle and edited with filters. Not, all selfies are like this, however, I believe there is a stigma that selfies are overly edited photographs, a stigma which I do not agree with. My “selfie” is just a random picture I ended up taking on my phone in the comfort of my room. I really had no purpose or thought put in when taking this picture but I noticed my go to is to throw up the peace sign. I spent too much time trying to figure out why I do this but could not reach an answer. I even found myself wondering if I would be judged by attaching this picture of me with the peace sign and “duck lips”. This is exactly when I realized I care too much about what people think of me through pictures. I should not care if I am judged by doing those actions in the picture, all that should matter is that I like the picture and how I portray myself in it. I know I am not just a face that uses the peace sign and duck lips but I’m someone that smiles way too much and cares about helping others. I believe it is hard to understand what is under someone's mask based off of a selfie, especially when remembering all of the controversial selfies that get taken the wrong way. The mask is something that allows our generation to hide their biggest insecurities, therefore it is difficult to truly understand what someone is feeling based on a selfie. It is also hard to do this with a selfie because everyone acts their best when they know other people are going to see them. I put my best mask on in selfies that are posted to social media because anyone can see it

In contrast, I am not very common with self portraits and I have never completed one before or even put thought into a self portrait of myself. I used to believe only extremely important individuals have a self portrait. However, as I was in the process of creating mine I realized a self portrait can be anything with the person in it as long as it holds meaning to them. The idea of my self portrait came to me randomly as I was sitting down and had the sun beaming on me. To many, the picture could just look like my face with varied shadows with the main focus on my eye and the white outline. Yet, the meaning goes much deeper than that. The white outline of my face is my mask and to me it means that no matter how hard I try I know I will always have my mask on keeping my guard up. My mask protects me from getting hurt. However, the fact that the mask is slowly pulling away from my face, to me, shows that I can bring that mask down making me okay with being vulnerable and open. My mask is up when I am around people I am just meeting for the first time or people I am not comfortable with. My mask is also up during certain times when I know I have to hide my emotions to be stronger for those around me. Despite all the times my mask is up, it is also down a good amount of times. I can keep my mask off when I am around everyone I am comfortable with especially my friends and family. Besides the white outline, the other focal point of the photograph is my eye. In my family, the eye is something that we’ve always agreed shows something about the soul or we agree with the cliche “the eye shows our deepest darkest secrets”. I believe the eyes are very important to someone because everyday they process so much information and so many faces. The eyes are what tell when someone is lying or when they’ve had a long day which the mask can’t cover them. This image communicates that I have been through more than what meets the eye which is also why I chose to highlight my eye.

Every selfie and self portrait represents the person in a different way depending on the person who is viewing it. The difference between my selfie and my self portrait is the selfie was just made randomly serving no purpose whereas the self portrait allowed for time of self- reflection. In both, I have a mask up in one more than the other but it is still present. To me my selfie represents me as carefree but to others I could be represented as basic and that’s okay because I know how I see it. I believe my self portrait is mysterious and can be interpreted in many different ways. In my opinion, the way the audience interprets my self portrait or other portraits displays a little of how they view themselves. There are many situations where people have their mask on and keep a higher mask, I believe there are situations like this to protect the person with the mask. I believe my mask is there to protect me from getting hurt but comes down to help me grow. Yet, does my mask makes me a greater stranger to the world or the cave we live in?

Works Cited

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. Dell Publ, 1977.