Facing the Strange

In the first image the selfie I am just an ordinary guy who goes about his day just like most people. There is nothing really special about me in this picture, except for the fact of who I am and who the person I am going to be. They always say a picture is worth a thousand words and that is correct if you go into detail about everything. I am in a room, what room could I be in, am I at somebodies house, or am I at my house in my own room. In the picture I have a half smile which could mean I could be faking the smile and thinking about more serious things. I am a person who keeps things to himself, and I do not like to lurk into people's business, so being in my room could signify that I keep to myself, and I do not like to share things with anybody besides the people that I trust, and are close to me.

In the second picture the portrait I am staring off into the distance the question is where am I looking? Am I looking at somebody? Am I looking at something? Nobody knows except me. It could represent how I am not aware of my surrounding most of the time, and it could mean I am focused on something. But the picture could also signify how I like to be outside, and how I have an open mind to everything I do. My fingers are interlocked which could mean how confident I am in myself and in my head with everything I do, and everything I say. I have a smile on my face which means I am a happy person on the inside, and if you get to know me you would know how positive I am, and how comical/entertaining I can be. In my mind I am always looking forward to the future, and I never worry about things that happened in the past because nobody should worry or even think about anything that has happened in the past, only if it means something to them.

In the portrait my stance is pretty open and that means that I can be dominant, or at least I would like to think of myself as dominant for what I do everyday their are no regrets because it is all just a learning curve for the future me to learn and adapt to everything I do know to prepare myself for the future, and my future goals. A difference between the the selfie and the portrait could be the change of location, or the stance in the portrait. I have learned to become more positive in everything that I do and to not take anything for granted, and how I have learned for my mistakes over the years. Another difference between the two photos is the way that I am looking in the selfie I am looking into the camera for the photo, and in the portrait I am looking into the distance and not looking into the camera.

Some comparisons between the selfie and the portrait are I have a smile in both weather it is a soft smile or a real smile I am always happy even when it looks like I am not happy I am happy. I would like to say I present myself as a young adult who is willing to work hard in everything he does, and does not give up even when things can get frustrating, or tough at times. Also I present myself as a shy guy who doesn't really like to talk to people who he doesn't know, but would love to get to know more people especially in college, or starting a new job. I also would present myself as a person who doesn't procrastinate, I like to get my work done and turned in on time before the deadline. If I have a paper to do and the rough draft isn't due in two weeks I am not going to slack and blow it off saying how I will do it later, or how I will do it next week. I like to get things done, do them correctly, get it done on time, and even get some help from my sister or parents in the process of the rough draft to make sure I am staying on topic, and I am doing things correctly and the writing is good to turn in.

The ideas of Susan Sontag's "In Plato's Cave" is similar and is very connectable to my photographs because they tell a story and reveals something that nobody knows about you, or what you are hiding inside. In Sontag's story she reveals how photography has affected society today, she believes photographs are a false way of relating to the world because pictures can be so flawed. But today we have learned that pictures are worth a thousand words, and you can easily connect to other people through pictures. Every single picture that is posted on the internet, or the pictures we took for this assignment tell a story about yourself. Such as the portrait we took for this assignment, we are basically telling a story about who we are on the inside, and not who we appear to be on the outside that most people see when you go to school, or just hanging out with your friends.

Although some pictures can be fake such as the selfie that was taken by Bethany in the movie "Jumanji". Bethany's picture is fake because she is trying to make herself look productive taking pictures of coffee and her reading a book when she woke up. Or even the picture that Breanna took smiling in front of Auschwitz, and their was that big controversy about why she was smiling and why she was happy to be their. Breanna's picture is worth a thousand words because she said that her father and mother loved to teach and learn about history together, but Breanna's father died she wanted to travel to Auschwitz because her father taught her about that place, so she decided to travel their in his honor and take a picture to keep for herself, and to thank her dad for teaching her history.

On the other hand many people who saw this picture took that the wrong way and decided to bash her for smiling and taking pictures at Auschwitz, but those people who did that didn't know the true meaning behind why she took that picture until she decided to do something about it. Going back to Sontag's point of view on photographs she states "Photographs, which fiddle the scale of the world, themselves get reduced, blown up, cropped, retouched, doctored, tricked out" (Sontag 4). She is saying how photographs can be seen and viewed as fake because they can be photo shopped, and be changed by removing, or adding things to it. But I believe that adds more to the story such as a portrait, you are portraying more about yourself, or somebody else, and what they are hiding in them, and not what they are showing on the outside. It just makes the photo pop out more, and makes it more unique and pleasing to everybody's eye. Also if people actually think about what they are looking at in a portrait, they could tell who the type of person you are on the inside from just one photo.