Stranger in Me

Today’s society revolves around photographs, it is almost impossible to avoid seeing them. Most Americans have a smartphone of their own. This is the most commonly used device to capture and discover photographs. Social media makes the use of photographs even more popular. You’re able to share your own pictures and see what others are sharing too. A lot of people spend a lot of time making sure everything that they post match or have a specific theme going on. They use this to try to make their lives appear perfect. People try to capture every single little detail of their life nowadays. But are the pictures telling the truth? When you have a camera, you hold a lot of power. You can capture a big picture, or just a small piece of what you see. You can make a photograph look however you would like or show whatever you would like. This is what takes reality away from photographs. You don’t know if there is more to the photograph because you only see what the photographer wants you to see. Also, having photoshop takes the photograph even further than reality. People get so used to seeing photoshopped pictures that they expect to see the same things in real life.

Susan Sontag was a philosopher, writer, teacher, film maker, and political activist. On her essay, In Plato’s Cave, she refers to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Plato wrote Allegory of the Caveas a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon. In the Allegory Socrates gave Glaucon the scenario of prisoners being chained inside a cave their whole lives facing a wall, being unable to move or turn their heads. A fire behind them would cast shadows of people walking by with objects and animals. The prisoners would learn to recognize the shadows and distinguish them. Later, a prisoner would be freed and he would go outside and see the real world. He would then adjust and accept the new reality and go back to the cave to tell the other prisoners, but the prisoners would not understand and refuse to accept what the freed prisoner tells them. Plato wrote that to use as a metaphor. Us, humans, are the prisoners and our reality, the world, is a shadow. Plato uses this to teach us that we are ignorant. We only know what we perceive, or what our senses reveal to us. We are ignorant to what exists beyond our reality. Sontag uses Plato’s Allegory of theCaveto explain to us that photographs are just like the shadows. They give us a false sense of reality because the person viewing the photograph only sees what the photographer wants them to see. In today’s society, everyone is obsessed with photographs. Everybody wants a perfect image, and with social media everybody loves to share all the details they find important about their lives. When we look at images we must understand that we are only being shown part of reality and not the whole picture.

“Essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own” (Sontag, 57) If you look at my selfie you can see that I am smiling, probably making you assume that I am happy. You can also see that I am at an art museum and because of the lighting you can also see that it is sunny outside. If you keep looking, you would notice more things and make more assumptions about what is going on in the picture. This is how photographs give us the false sense of reality. You can only see what I decided to capture, which was just the artwork and myself. You would not know where I was, unless you have been there before, and you would not have guessed that I was with my friends or that the picture was taken in Pilsen, on July 30^that exactly 2:26 pm. The only thing that connects me to the photograph is what I remember. You wouldn't be able to connect me to it by yourself because you don’t know the full story. I also know that I cannot depend on it to define who I really am. It only shows a small fraction of my identity. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that is true, but there is always a whole reality that exists beyond it. This photograph is only a small piece of what is going on. “The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. That is, the identification of the subject of a photograph always dominates our perception of it - as it does not, necessarily, in a painting” (Sontag, 92) When you look at my self-portrait, you can make an assumption about how I feel or what each object or color symbolizes. In reality, only I know the true meaning behind it. Artwork, just like a photograph, also gives the audience a false sense of reality and that is the beauty of it. As an artist, you can create anything you want and give it as much meaning as you want. You can include or exclude anything that you want. The audience will make their own opinions or assumptions about it but they will never be correct unless the artist confirms me. You would not be able to really see who I am by just looking at one of my selfies or my self-portrait. The symbolism behind my self portrait is that I follow my heart to make decisions. My loved ones are my top priority and they influence a lot of the things that I choose to do.

When you write, everything has a meaning, but only if you are honest about it. In Ken Macrorie’s article, A Poison Fish, he tells the readers that Students produce engfish. He defines engfishas a language that students produce because they think it is what the teacher wants to read. The students add big words, give false information, and hide away the truth. Engfish is like a photograph. Sontag explains to us how photographs hide away the whole truth and give a false sense of reality. It is the same thing that engfishdoes. When students write in engfish, they only tell you what they think you want to know. They don’t involve their own opinions or tell you what they really think. To avoid this, you have to write as you think and get your message through, even if it is very simple.

If you want to know who I really am, I’ll tell you. All engfish aside. My name is Yaritza Rivera. I am eighteen years old. I am from Blue Island, illinois. There are five people in my family, one brother and one sister. I have two amazing best friends who I cannot live without. I also have a boyfriend that goes to school in Louisville, Kentucky. I really enjoy going to new places and trying new things. I love to paint even though I am not very good at it. I love listening to music and going to concerts. When I am older, I really want to live in the city. My dream is to travel the world, I would love to go to Spain. I also want to go into the medical field, I think I want to be a physician’s assistant. I feel like I am very easy to talk to and joke around with. I know that I treat people with kindness, and I know I am a really caring person. I also overthink everything, but I just avoided doing that right now.