Photograph Response

A) My group focused on a photograph that was in a December 2007 issue and is of a group of Palestinians praying. This picture is of eight elders looking very defeated and one young boy and takes up two pages. In a dim lighted cavern with miss matched floor panels the young boy is in the middle of the spread and is squatting down almost sitting on his heels with his hands turned palms facing the roof almost as if asking for something better. The elders in the room are standing with heads bent and palms towards the roof. Behind the praying group hangs a torn from ceiling to floor wall covering, thus exposing the cement wall behind. In the upper left hand of the photograph hangs a portrait of what seems to be baby Jesus. This photo’s presentation of Palestine Christians supports Shekhar Deshpande’s statement “[i]t is as if that world needs to be posed in the appropriate way to the Western observer, he could not see it in its bare essentialities” (9). The way the prayers are positioned and situated for the pictures is almost so the viewer doesn’t have to see the rest of the grotto and only our imagination of what makes up the room is will fill in the feeling of despair rough way of life.

B) Without conscious awareness a viewer imposes knowledge he or she has of what is being looked at. That knowledge helps set the stage for how the picture is perceived. Photographers are, in many cases, relying on this knowledge to help impose feeling into their art. For example, the cover page photo on the May 1997 issue National Geographic is of a young Indian boy covered in red Holi powder that appears to the viewer as looking almost painfully sad yet has very curious eyes. A viewer imposes the pain onto the boy because of the knowledge he or she has about everyday living conditions in India. With a little more information the reader could find out that the red powder is for the spring festival Holi and it is a very happy exciting time for Indians.