Week 1- An Image Within

Comment on an image with some particular personal significance.

Please do not include your image with your post but keep it at hand for the class

42 comments

  1. Among all the pictures stored in my phone, there is one it is important to me. The picture was taken in a gym almost one year ago and there were three people in it, one is me, one is a guy, one is a girl. They are my roommates. What we were doing at that moment was sketching the legs. We were all standing in a row, facing the same direction, with the left foot standing, and putting the right foot on the bar. In order to let the lens capture all the faces, two person behind me should bent down a bit, so we were creating a folding-fan shape. Why I think the picture important is because I think it is rare that people I meet can do such different gesture like me. The guy can do it because he practices martial arts, and the girl can do it because she does dancing like me. I think the gesture is like a bridge that links different people together, and the reality is exactly how the picture tells, that we are so intimate like family members.

  2. As the assignment was announced, I immediately think about this particular image on my phone. It is an image of a photo of my mom taken when she was young. The original photo was laminated and stored in an old album, so there is a white border around the photo of my mom. The original photo was a half-length portrait of my mom with a red background. Her body was slightly facing the left side of the camera, with her head tilted to the right and her left hand holding her hair. She was wearing a blue sweatshirt and a necklace in this picture. Also there was light coming from her back. I assume the original photo was taken in a photo shop where people used to go and take studio portrait shots. I found this image significant because my mom was at the same age as me when this photo was taken and it reminds me how much things had changed these years. People always said that I look just like my mom while I don’t think so. It is interesting to compare myself to my mom. The fact that the idea of images itself change so much along with the advance of technology also interests me. Back in my mom’s generation, it was popular to take pictures in a photo shop which we don’t really do nowadays(maybe its just me), except for passport or visa photo. Today almost everyone can take pictures using their phone. The way how images were stored also changed a lot. I found the original image in an album and it is probably the only copy of the image. The image I took on my phone is a digital document and it could easily upload or sent to other.

    1. (I choose another image that evokes more personal emotion.)

      The image is a graduation photoshoot from my senior year of high school. In the image, all people in our grade are wearing a cap and gown. Girls sitting in the front role and boys standing at the back. There are around 50 of us. The background of the image is the building we study in. The image evokes so much emotion and memory of the people I met and place I study. I feel sad that we part from each other and it is almost impossible to have all the people gather together again. At the same time, I feel happy when looking at the image that we are still friends right now despite the geographical separation. I stay in the same place during elementary, middle and high school, so me and my friends/classmate pretty much grew up together. I really the friendship and memory in between us and this image will always be one of my favorites.

      https://newhive.com/mdchen/2017_01_31

  3. The photo that I chose is black, I understand that it is arguably not a photo at all. It was created in a moment of my fathers curiosity, an accident on his part, inspection of my little photo printer and its workings caused it to spit out this ‘blank’. A man whom is a heavy duty mechanic by trade (knows the ins and outs of most things), its rare to witness a moment where he is consumed by child-like curiosity, yet this photo holds that for me. I suppose its more of a memory, but its something I take with me every time I move; its always displayed somewhere I can glance over and see it. I’m often asked why I don’t throw the ‘dud’ out, but its a genuine moment with my family in my childhood home. Even if none of us are represented in it.

  4. I have also chosen a photo I have on my phone, taken only a few months ago. It’s an image of my old cat sitting in my lap after my dad moved out to Surrey. Tiger, the cat, is fairly old, being fifteen as of last September, so a move like that was something she hadn’t really had to deal with before. Needless to say, she freaked out. Now, I stopped living with my dad full time roughly ten years ago, so my connection with my old cat had more or less faded over the time since I had moved to Vancouver. So it came as a surprise for me when I was asked to see if I could coax her out of hiding. I was shocked when, not three minutes after I sat down, she climbed into my lap, just like she used when I was a kid. This photo is one that I consider personal because of what it means to me that, even after ten years apart, the bond between me and my first pet hasn’t disappeared.

  5. I looked through my photo album and I chose a photo of I sit on my bed in my bedroom. It shows what my bedroom looks like. I remember I was watching a movie when the picture was taken. The main reason why I chose this photo is because there are all my toys in it. This picture reminds me that my parents are barely home because of their work, so I started to stay with toys since I was a little girl. I am too afraid of dark, so everytime I spend the night alone I could not fall asleep. I really need someone or something can be there when the night comes. In this photo, I was holding a toy moose and my toy bear was sitting beside me. Every time I walk into my bedroom and see a toy bear which is two meters tall, I feel comfortable and safe. Even though there is no one but me in this house. The moment in this photo is important to me because it feels like my sisters and brothers watching a movie with me.

  6. This photo, which I have kept digitally, is one that I took with my grandma when I was around 4 years old. It was taken on my birthday, as the brush of cream from the cake on my nose promises. Also, by the big smile on my face, it is easy to tell that I was the star of the event, where it took place. The photo only captured my grandma and I although it still reminds me that there were many other family members present at the event. Through the picture-perfect smile on my grandma’s face, it is not hard to tell that it was a set photograph, where someone else from the event got our attention and intentionally captured the moment. With our faces touching each other side by side, it reminds me of the close connection I have with my grandma up until this day. However, oftentimes, this photo reminds me of how much has changed through time: the healthy black hair of my grandma’s has now become all white, she no longer looks as energetic as she was back then. This is the reason what makes this photograph, or almost any photograph special, as it captures our best and most memorable moment and allows us to be able to look back years after, and by looking at the photo again, it gives us another chance to go back to that very moment when the photo was taken.

  7. The summer before I left Philippines had the most bittersweet moments. As always, there were the highs and the lows. The image I selected was from one of the highlights of that final summer – an image taken by my best friend during Taylor Swift’s RED Tour. Unfortunately, we watched separately. She was one of the chosen few who were invited to watch from the mosh pit, while I was up at the viewing booths with my other friend. As a photographer, she spent the night taking photos of Taylor – and luckily for me, we were positioned opposite each other. So if you take a close look, you’ll find a very subtle hint of me and my other friend just above Taylor, my favourite celebrity since 2006.

  8. I have to admit, it was pretty hard trying to pick an image– none really came to mind. What I ended up doing was going through all thesaved images on my phone and pick out the ones I wouldn’t be able to bear losing. The following is a description of the image:

    A recent screenshot (within the past couple of months, or maybe three- I don’t really remember) of a conversation I had with a close friend of mine in the early hours of the morning. It may seem like an insignificant snippet of conversation, but this is the one time she made a somewhat important promise to me (or not, I guess that view would differ from person to person). The overall tone feels lighthearted, but I remember trying very hard to cheer her up before this particular part of the conversation took place.

    Whether she’ll keep this particular promise or not, or if she’ll even remember, I don’t know– but this screenshot is significant to me because it serves as a reminder of this promise.

  9. I took this image with my all-time favourite camera one morning- a Leica M Monochrome, my dad?s camera. The photograph takes me back to a drive I took with him down a particularly dangerous road when we were on a trip together. We stopped to look out at these waves that were ferociously crashing upon some volcanic rock and soak up our surroundings. Every time I look at this photo I can almost feel the water spraying onto the shore. The waves in the foreground are intense yet totally alluring, to me at least, while it seems much more calm in the distance. The entire image is out of focus, purposefully, I might add. When I look at this image, it excites me and fills me with the urge to travel again. But it also calms me down and helps me recollect when I get overwhelmed. I love recounting old trips with my dad, especially when viewing photos like this one.

  10. There was one photo I chose representing one night from my high life, it was created by my classmate who love taking photo, but she could not continue with that because of our high academic stress. In this image, trees, two garbage cans and a road toward students’ apartments have been covered with the black sky. In the middle of this picture, yellow and green light was going through the whole space, therefore, it represented different kinds of color interweaving together, creating an oppressive and stressful aura of that situation. However, it was the last day I could stay in my high school for some reason, although the meaning of one night may not be a good expression of my thoughts, actually the whole image played a memorial role in my experience, especially for studying.

      1. I get a sense of chaos or busyness. The color purple evokes feelings of softness though, a slow and constant feeling of chaos. I feel zoomed in, focused, a sense of loss in a way.

  11. The image I have selected for this assignment is of my cousin sister and mother. I took this photo in an Aquarium in a theme park in Hong Kong. This is one of my favorite images mainly because of the composition. It’s a silhouette of my mom carrying my cousin sister, so it almost looks like she has two heads. They are looking at a large fish tank with a limited color scheme of cool colors ranges from different shades and tones of blue and green. Due to the electric and bright effect of the colors, it allows the subject of the image (my mom and cousin) to stand out. I also really like this image because it also brings back pleasant memories of the day at the theme park.

  12. The photo I choose to represents the most important ballet performance happened in my life. It is formed by 9 girls. There are 9 girls dressing in ballet dress and having a sweet smile toward the camera. This group photo was taken after Miss Chinese Vancouver Pageant 2016. Before the pageant, we had been practicing for serval months. almost everyday and finally, we diid a great job on our ballet show. This is a photo celebration and memory, it reminds me the achievement I have made and I was so lucky to become one of the dancer in the show.

  13. A woman stands centered, an arm behind her head. An act of nervousness disguised as a pose. She leans on a roof, backdropped by a city that flows like waves over a hill in the distance. The photo is grainy, visually and physically, a relic of camera’s that printed the photos out on too thick paper. The woman is laughing, leaning on an iron wrought fence that surrounds the roof. On the back there’s writing;

    1960,
    Dear Brent don’t forget to write

    #101 – 1950 W 8th Ave
    Vancouver, B.C.
    V6J 1W3

    Love Dimitra

  14. The picture I chose is a photo I took of 5th Commando beach in Palawan. This photo not only captures the beautiful scenery but also a very happy moment in my life. The Philippines is my parents home and the first time I visited I was very young and couldn’t truly appreciate being there. So going back recently and getting to experience the culture, as if it were the first time, was so enriching.

  17. There are a few times in my life that I have felt vulnerability and freedom at the same time. It is an odd mix, I agree, and it does feel strange but only in a positive way. I have chased the feelings of self discovery and a confidence that I experienced in these moments and I imagine myself often returning to this mental and physical state but this remains elusive. I sometimes stumble across situations portrayed in movies or photos that evoke the significant audio textures inherent in the original emotion but the image itself lacks a specific visual component. I believe there are similar aspects of the environment across the situations and these leak into my imaginations but it is usually an aural sensation that I focus on with regards to the image I am thinking of.

      1. Both the video and audio were jarring at first and left me feeling a little overwhelmed– but the longer I observed this piece, the more the two elements seemed to fit together, leading to a sense of relief and fitting in. It’s a bit hard to describe, but the looping audio began to feel comforting because they’re all sounds that I’m used to hearing around me every day.

  18. It was easy for me to pick the photo, because I have it as a background on my cellphone.This is an image of my family. It’s a simple group selfie style photo with my youngest siblings and my mom on it.I chose it not because of the aesthetic but because of the emotional input. While looking at it I feel a full bunch of strong feelings that are really hard to explain, but can be compared to fireworks to some degree: they explode again and again, sometimes more, sometimes less, and than suddenly stop by leaving hardly visible tray after themselves.

    2. It reminds me of the feeling about freedom and pleasure. The composition of these two fish could be flexible and vivid, and the representation of waves in the river is filling with much more colorful and creative patterns, translating different ideas or notions of what waves are. Personally, I saw this image that highly understands the relationship between image and personal experience, leaving more space for its viewers

  21. The image I had chosen gave me feelings of warmth, nostalgia, homesickness and joy when I look back at the time I had taken it. It reminds me of the last time I had gone home and spent a few months alone, in Moshi,Kilimanjaro, at my grandmother’s place. The beauty of the nature gave me this sense of freedom, an excitement to go exploring for more beauty in the forests and river paths. Overall, it was an overwhelming feeling of being at home, belonging somewhere that gave me so much peace.
    https://newhive.com/alema848/image-of-an-image

  22. This video strongly depicts the powerfulness of the link that bounds a family,unconditional love that exist in between the members of a family. The vividness of the ‘ strain ‘ or ‘splash’ of color and their harmony in the video illustrates the cohesiveness that does take place in certain families. The different colors complement each other, they form a whole, just like each persons is an individual component of a larger group, his family. The audio, the music emphasizes the emotion that the artist put in his work.

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