Stranger in Me

Revealing What Is Behind The Mask

It is pretty clear that I had two drastically different moods in the two pictures. Granted they both were taken days apart but nonetheless I look almost like a different person. It goes to show that people do not quite know what happens behind closed doors. In the top picture I am clearly pretty happy and in a fairly good mood, while in the bottom picture I am quite the opposite and that’s usually not a mood I like people to see me in, which is where the phrase “wearing a mask” comes into play. Photography definitely can capture a person’s best and worst moments. “Photographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we’re shown a photograph of it". That quote relates more to the bottom picture.

From looking at the picture on the right you can probably tell I have pretty bad depression, but would you have believed it if I told you that? Probably not. That’s really where the phrase “wearing a mask” comes into play. When I am not home and out being apart of society I seem fine like everything in my life is going great, when in all actuality it is really not. Some days I need to put that mask on and pretend I am okay and other days I do not need the mask as exemplified in the first picture. Staying on topic with the first picture the following quote relates to it, “photographs may be more memorable than moving images, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow” (Sontag 18). The whole reason I ended up taking the first picture was because I happened to be in a decent mood that day which happens to be somewhat unusual for me and I wanted to remember that day and the mood I was in. But “photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks”. This quote is basically saying that you don’t quite know what’s going on at the time the picture was taken because you look at my first picture and I seem happy but anything could have happened right before that to trigger that emotion.

Whereas in the second picture, my emotion is very different but again anything could have occurred to trigger that emotion. It all goes back to you don’t know what is going on with a person behind closed doors, like you think you could know but you really don’t. For example, some of my close friends know the truth about what I struggle with and some of them have seen the progression of my mood change from picture one to picture two. Photography does happen to be a big way that I communicate, especially when talking to my friends. This quote also happens to relate to the first picture, “as photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure”. This is very true. On the day that the first picture was taken in addition to me being in an unusually good mood I also felt incredibly confident which unusual as well because I am normally a very insecure person mostly for the fact that I do not personally think that I am super photogenic even though I have been told otherwise. But going back to the second picture I definitely wasn’t feeling the most confident about myself. “Photography has become one of the principal devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance of participation”. This quote relates to the bottom picture because in addition to all the other things I have mentioned about myself I also have struggled with fitting in and photography has helped me to feel like I am participating in something even if it just for a brief moment. Photography sometimes gives me something to post on social media like everyone else seems to do, so that allows me to feel like I have participated in something. “Photographs will offer indisputable evidence that the trip was made, that the program was carried out, that fun was had”. Photographs help us to realize that what had happened was real, like I really was in a good mood when the first picture was taken and I was in a bad mood when the second picture was taken.

After pictures are taken they become just a memory to look back. I have photos that I took when I took a trip to California to see family for the holidays. I’ll never have the same experience but I have the pictures to remind me that the moment really did happen and I did have those experiences. But on the contrary photographs can also sometimes capture moments that we really might not care to remember. Take the second picture for example, that’s a moment in time that I would not care to remember but since it is still a picture I will most likely always remember that moment. But “photographs may be more memorable than moving images, because they are a neat slice of time, not a flow”. Life does not stop or slow down for anyone so have the pictures is an easy way to see what happened without having to stop in life. Even though I am sure we all wished time would slow down so we could possibly work on ourselves more but life does not slow down for anyone so all we really can do is live everyday to the fullest and live each day like it is our last. That is the beauty of photography because it can capture some wonderful moments that will be nice to look back on and remember.

Unfortunately the camera does not capture all the best moments so we just have to try and remember them. In all, even though the depression, self consciousness and not seeming to fit in does get to me sometimes, I know I can get through the struggle I go through everyday. I just gotta lift my head up and tell myself that everything will be okay and will work itself out in the end because everyday is a new day and things sometimes do not go as planned but there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel. Some people do not see what goes on in my life but that is why when things happen you find a way to get through the obstacle that challenges you. Even though life is not always a piece a cake like some people may say, the real point of the pictures is that you are your own person and you can wear a mask for multiple different reasons or you can who you are and be confident in your own skin and live everyday to the fullest that is what I try to do since going through my struggles. I try to not take life for granted and I try to make as many memories as possible as well as try to capture those moments on camera because it will be an awesome reminder of the fun I had in life and how I did not let anything stop me, not even my struggles.

Work Cited

Sontag, Susan. In Plato's Cave. 20 Jan. 2020