Say cheese and fake it (Not sure about this title)
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This may be true, but what about the thousands of other words not represented in that very moment? Where does this leave the moments before and after the camera snaps? Even within that very moment, the human psyche allows us to be in a million different places at once. Hundreds of thoughts, feelings, and ideas can float through our minds just within the few seconds it takes to snap a picture. So where are these in the photograph? Well I guess that depends on who the viewer is. If the person looking at the photo was there, they might have a better idea of what was going on than someone who wasn’t there. Even the person(s) who are in the photo may not remember exactly what was going on in their mind at that point in time, when looking at the photo years or even months after it was taken. Beyond this, how real is it when posing for a picture? We smile for pictures to look happy and like we’re having fun. Is this truly the case? Are we just faking it for the camera? A photograph can be a great reminder of that point in time, but it can also be one big lie that we can make others (and sometimes even ourselves) believe.
I found a picture that was taken of my mother, my brother, and me on a recent vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica. This particular photograph was taken by a tour guide while we were climbing Dunn’s River Falls. The photo shows the three of us squatting down in the rushing water of the falls, leaning against the rocks on which we were climbing to make it up to the top of the waterfall. We are all smiling in the photo and I look fairly relaxed. What the photo doesn’t show is that the water was freezing cold, I was cranky, and I was NOT in the mood to be climbing up any waterfalls. In addition to this, I was also annoyed because some of the people on the tour were being particularly loud and obnoxious, and as I’m sure you could guess, my mood was not conducive to these people at the time. It was more my mood than the people. I realize that these people were also on vacation and they were having a good time and letting themselves have fun with the tour, unlike myself. I do this to myself often, and it is something I often regret, but I digress.
Upon closer examination of my facial expression, I am smiling, but my eyes tell that I am not entirely comfortable. If you knew me well enough, you’d be able to look at this photo and know that something was not right. All the way up the falls we were stopped periodically to take more posed pictures and do other silly touristy things. Just for the record, none of them made me feel any better. Nonetheless, although I was unhappy throughout, by the time it was over I was thankful and able to acknowledge at that point that this was a good experience and that I was glad I did it. At least I look happier in the pictures than I was in my mind and that I was probable expressing when not posing for a picture.
This reminds me of an incident on a dinner cruise in Mexico. My boyfriend and I went on vacation and decided to go on this dinner cruise to have a nice, relaxing evening on our last night in Mexico. It was pleasant, but we noticed that we were the youngest people on the boat, and the second youngest couple was the newlyweds sitting next to us who must have been at least five to ten years older than us. Interestingly enough, we were between the newlyweds and two sisters and their husbands, all of whom looked to be in their sixties. After a while, someone of the 3 groups of us took out a camera, and the others soon followed suit. Trying to take pictures of ourselves by ourselves didn’t work very well, so now each group was offering to take pictures of the others. One of the older women said she would take a picture of Dan and me. Well after Dan crawled under the table in order to get to my side and sit next to me for the picture, we took a decent picture of us sitting there smiling politely. So the woman says something like, “You guys are too young to be on this cruise. You should be out having fun. I’ll take another picture- this time look like you’re having fun!” Dan thought this was a great idea and threw his arms in the air like he was having a great time on some party boat and I started laughing because of the woman’s comment and Dan’s reaction, and that’s when she snapped the second photo. It turned out to have a completely different feel to it, even though we are in the same place, the same position. It was all a matter of the context.
When comparing these two photos, it is easy to determine that they were taken in the same day and around the same time. If someone who wasn’t there didn’t know the story behind the two pictures, however, they wouldn’t understand why the two are so much different in energy and expressions. The first, calm and subdued, the second, lively and looking more like we’re having fun, just as the photographer wanted. So which of these was a true expression of how we were feeling at the time? Were they both? What’s interesting is that I prefer the first picture, and Dan likes the second one. This, if you knew both of us, is very fitting of our personalities. I am quiet and much more reserved. Dan, though he has his moments of being calm, is often more outgoing, loud, and energetic. In this case, whose story are the pictures telling? Are either of them an accurate depiction of our thoughts and feelings at the moment? It’s hard to say.
I guess the real question here is, if a picture is worth a thousand words, whose words are they? And are these words real or posed? We can be and portray anything we want to once we know that a picture is going to be taken. It is at this point that we have to decide what we want the world to see. Even when we aren’t happy or having fun, we can throw on a smile and trick anyone looking at the picture that we are. There are even times in which looking at photos gives the subject of the photo a different feeling about that time than they actually had in the moment. Photographs allow us to look back on some of the best times of our lives and relive cherished memories in an instant. We can choose to be actors on film, portraying a certain character in whatever circumstance the photo is being taken. Although there are usually ways to see through the mask put on for the camera, knowing the story behind the photos can open up a whole new world of implications, ideas, and vocabulary to use in the thousand words represented within that picture.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This may be true, but what about the thousands of other words not represented in that very moment? Where does this leave the moments before and after the camera snaps? Even within that very moment, the human psyche allows us to be in a million different places at once. Hundreds of thoughts, feelings, and ideas can float through our minds just within the few seconds it takes to snap a picture. So where are these in the photograph? Well I guess that depends on who the viewer is. If the person looking at the photo was there, they might have a better idea of what was going on than someone who wasn’t there. Even the person(s) who are in the photo may not remember exactly what was going on in their mind at that point in time, when looking at the photo years or even months after it was taken. Beyond this, how real is it when posing for a picture? We smile for pictures to look happy and like we’re having fun. Is this truly the case? Are we just faking it for the camera? A photograph can be a great reminder of that point in time, but it can also be one big lie that we can make others (and sometimes even ourselves) believe.
I found a picture that was taken of my mother, my brother, and me on a recent vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica. This particular photograph was taken by a tour guide while we were climbing Dunn’s River Falls. The photo shows the three of us squatting down in the rushing water of the falls, leaning against the rocks on which we were climbing to make it up to the top of the waterfall. We are all smiling in the photo and I look fairly relaxed. What the photo doesn’t show is that the water was freezing cold, I was cranky, and I was NOT in the mood to be climbing up any waterfalls. In addition to this, I was also annoyed because some of the people on the tour were being particularly loud and obnoxious, and as I’m sure you could guess, my mood was not conducive to these people at the time. It was more my mood than the people. I realize that these people were also on vacation and they were having a good time and letting themselves have fun with the tour, unlike myself. I do this to myself often, and it is something I often regret, but I digress.
Upon closer examination of my facial expression, I am smiling, but my eyes tell that I am not entirely comfortable. If you knew me well enough, you’d be able to look at this photo and know that something was not right. All the way up the falls we were stopped periodically to take more posed pictures and do other silly touristy things. Just for the record, none of them made me feel any better. Nonetheless, although I was unhappy throughout, by the time it was over I was thankful and able to acknowledge at that point that this was a good experience and that I was glad I did it. At least I look happier in the pictures than I was in my mind and that I was probable expressing when not posing for a picture.
This reminds me of an incident on a dinner cruise in Mexico. My boyfriend and I went on vacation and decided to go on this dinner cruise to have a nice, relaxing evening on our last night in Mexico. It was pleasant, but we noticed that we were the youngest people on the boat, and the second youngest couple was the newlyweds sitting next to us who must have been at least five to ten years older than us. Interestingly enough, we were between the newlyweds and two sisters and their husbands, all of whom looked to be in their sixties. After a while, someone of the 3 groups of us took out a camera, and the others soon followed suit. Trying to take pictures of ourselves by ourselves didn’t work very well, so now each group was offering to take pictures of the others. One of the older women said she would take a picture of Dan and me. Well after Dan crawled under the table in order to get to my side and sit next to me for the picture, we took a decent picture of us sitting there smiling politely. So the woman says something like, “You guys are too young to be on this cruise. You should be out having fun. I’ll take another picture- this time look like you’re having fun!” Dan thought this was a great idea and threw his arms in the air like he was having a great time on some party boat and I started laughing because of the woman’s comment and Dan’s reaction, and that’s when she snapped the second photo. It turned out to have a completely different feel to it, even though we are in the same place, the same position. It was all a matter of the context.
When comparing these two photos, it is easy to determine that they were taken in the same day and around the same time. If someone who wasn’t there didn’t know the story behind the two pictures, however, they wouldn’t understand why the two are so much different in energy and expressions. The first, calm and subdued, the second, lively and looking more like we’re having fun, just as the photographer wanted. So which of these was a true expression of how we were feeling at the time? Were they both? What’s interesting is that I prefer the first picture, and Dan likes the second one. This, if you knew both of us, is very fitting of our personalities. I am quiet and much more reserved. Dan, though he has his moments of being calm, is often more outgoing, loud, and energetic. In this case, whose story are the pictures telling? Are either of them an accurate depiction of our thoughts and feelings at the moment? It’s hard to say.
I guess the real question here is, if a picture is worth a thousand words, whose words are they? And are these words real or posed? We can be and portray anything we want to once we know that a picture is going to be taken. It is at this point that we have to decide what we want the world to see. Even when we aren’t happy or having fun, we can throw on a smile and trick anyone looking at the picture that we are. There are even times in which looking at photos gives the subject of the photo a different feeling about that time than they actually had in the moment. Photographs allow us to look back on some of the best times of our lives and relive cherished memories in an instant. We can choose to be actors on film, portraying a certain character in whatever circumstance the photo is being taken. Although there are usually ways to see through the mask put on for the camera, knowing the story behind the photos can open up a whole new world of implications, ideas, and vocabulary to use in the thousand words represented within that picture.
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