Day 1

We were asked today in class to choose one photo that we had on our person that described us in some way as an exercise to show us a little of what the course was about and also to prepare us for our project due the following class. I, having only my shabby LG cell phone and my license on my person from which to choose some self-defining photograph, chose this one. It is a black and white photograph of my Grandfather as a college student among friends.
This summer my family and I went to Wooster, Ohio, my father's homeland, for my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. There was on display a bulletin board of old photographs of my grandparents and their children and even their children's children. This particular photograph immediately struck me both because of its visual appeal and because it gave me, for the very first time, a glimpse of the life that my grandfather lived. It gave an aged man I barely know a distinct personality, and showed me a window into his past and into the rather full life he has lived. This photograph portrays a very dapper, even dashing gentleman at the height of his youth, with the world at his feet. A person I have only ever viewed in one light suddenly had much more depth than I had ever given him credit for. I think this photograph is just fantastic.
This all has to do with me in that the whole experience in Ohio, epitomized by this photograph, demonstrated on a much more personal level the family from which I have come. I saw more of the people that raised my father and could understand him better, and in turn am able to better comprehend myself and the way I view the world. The fact that this photograph opened that up for me is, I believe, important within itself. Perhaps I need to pay better attention to the world around me, and think more about from whence I came, and maybe get to know my own grandchildren one day, in a way that my grandfather never did with me.