Interpreting Existence

GGS. 1,000 Words. 2020

In this unit of my class Journalism, we have been learning about the role of photography in journalism and what photojournalism is all about. We’ve learned about aperture, lighting, focus, the rule of thirds, objectivity, subjectivity, and how images impact stories. We specifically looked through The 100 Most Influential Images of All-Time, and we watched a TED Talk by photojournalist, Sebastião Salgado. 

For this AP (Action Project), we were to ask someone we know what the meaning of life is and take a photograph of them. I chose someone who I thought would have a thought-provoking view on what life means. So  I present to you, Cristina's interpretation of life's meaning.

 

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Cristina is a 36-year-old Hispanic, bilingual woman, she works as a therapist full time and lives with her 32-year-old sister. She is from Mexico City, Mexico, and comes to work here through a work visa. Back in Mexico, she has her two parents and her beloved dog, she tries to visit often. When not at her job, Cristina enjoys working out, eating very spicy foods, and recently, gardening. A few weeks ago, Cristina suffered a viral stroke from which she is recovering from. Her physical therapist told her it can take up to a year for her to fully recover. Disappointed, but never deterred, Cristina continues to work and maintain a positive attitude towards life.

On November 4th, a breezy Wednesday morning, I sat down with Cristina in her work office. After catching up, I get to the point of my visit. I ask her to sit comfortably and tell me, ‘What is the meaning of life?’

She is taken aback by the density of the question for a moment and has to think for a few seconds. At last, she says, “I think life means balance.”

I nod and motion her to elaborate. She repositioned herself in her chair to further explain: “I think the purpose of life is to have a balance in all of these areas [Selfcare, work, play, ect.]. It’s important to work because we have bills, doctors, food, and indulgements we have to pay. But, it is all for nothing to be able to buy all of these material things, like 100 bags or 20 pairs of shoes, if you can’t even enjoy them.” 

The idea of balance has been a crucial theory man has held onto for years. Many cultures have come to the conclusion that to live a good life one must live a balanced life. This is shown in many symbols as well, from the Celtic double spiral, the Taoist yin yang, to the Buddist infinite knot.

deposit photos. Black Double Sprials. N/a. OpenClipart-Vectors. Yin And Yang. N/a. Madboy74. Endless Knot. 2012

“I think that, after going through what I have, you realize, it doesn’t matter how many diplomas you have on your wall, what matters is how much one takes care of themselves and how much they’ve lived and enjoyed living." She paused for a moment, recollecting her thoughts. “I realized that though I thought there were a lot of ways I was taking care of myself, there were a lot of things I didn’t do for myself. I keep thinking, I can’t be a good therapist if I don’t have the balance I preach about myself. And I try really hard, I do therapy, I try to do self-care and exercise, but, finding this balance, I think, is the hardest thing to do in life.”

GGS. Cristina. 2020

I thought about her words and found it tragic that the meaning of life, in her eyes, was the hardest thing to achieve in your life. It also made me wonder, if this balance is an individualized purpose for each person, or if it means a balance of things in your life in general. I know one of Cristina’s main focuses in life is her work, she backs this up by saying: “...I consider myself someone who loves what they do and I am someone who gives my patients the best that I can offer, but then there is self-care. If I don’t rest I can’t help other people… To find balance one has to find these fractures we have in our lives these things that have happened to us before and how they’ve impacted us now. [You have] to understand why we are they way we are, what we like, what we want to be and what we don’t want to be.”

Cristina had danced around what balance meant for her but in these sentences, she explained it all. As a therapist, she finds the most balance she needs to have is within herself and her mind so that she may be healthy and resilient enough to help others. We’ve spoken before about how, for a while, she asked herself ‘why me’ after she had her stroke, and how, after a few days, she answered her own question. ‘Why not me?’ I think maybe, in its own twisted ways, this is the universes call to Cristina to take better care of herself. She always has tried her best to take care of herself, but always ends up putting others, friends, family, or patients, before herself. Maybe now, t’s time for her to be her center of attention and care.

As we come to a close in our conversation Cristina leaves me with one final bit of solace. “We have to maintain stability between what we believe, who we are, how we take care of ourselves, and this will allow us to live a happy life. I think that’s why we’re here, to be happy and thrive within balance. And when we’re gone, all we have left are the memories we accumulate in life, nothing else.”

I took this photograph of Cristina on the same day I spoke to her. It was taken in her workspace, where a lot of her time is spent listening to others. That is also why I framed her ear to be on the border of the rightmost box and within the middlebox of the rule of thirds, I wanted to make her ear prominent in the shot to invoke the feeling of being listened to. On the back of her neck is the warm glow of one of her lamps that makes the room feel safe and cozy.

The photo was taken with an f/4 (medium-ish) aperture since the depth of field isn’t too extreme between her and the background. It was also taken where the natural light wasn’t hitting well so I needed a lot of light hitting the lens. My shutter speed was set to low since I was taking a portrait, I wanted to allow for more time to process the image since the subject wasn’t in motion. 

Objectively, this photo is simply a side view portrait of a person with nothing extravagant going on around it. Subjectively I want this image to show a few things. As I mentioned before, to show how she listens, but also to show how she lives her life. She heavily alluded to the fact that she wasn’t materialistic, so I made sure nothing else was in the shot but her. Since that was her closing statement, we leave with nothing but our memories. I even beg to argue that since she is in this picture, her memories are in it too.

 I feel as though the image is not as powerful as it maybe could have been, we were in a bit of a rush so my picture planning options were limited, but if I were given more time I would have definitively done something more enticing with the angle and framing.

I hope you take some of Cristinas words to heart and think less of the materials you can purchas and more about the memories you can make.