Title of Life

It's only been about two weeks and we are on to our second action project for Journalism. For this unit we took a look at photojournalism. We met with Caleb Hamernick, a photographer from Chicago now in New York, and he first gave a brief history on photography and the older ways people would take pictures as well as why the first photo taken had only one person in it. He explained what makes a picture what it is and what it can mean. Thinking of that he showed some of his own pieces from a set called 'Fears and phobias' where people posed with what they are afraid of. After the interview we went to take our own photos, taking pictures of motion, shadows, and stills. After that we moved to the action project. The idea is to interview anyone on what they believe the meaning of life to be. The reason it is anyone is because of the diverse views that can come from each person as no one has had the exact same life experience. I asked a friend of mine, JH, to be my interviewee and he accepted. 

Interview and analysis of JH

"What is the meaning of life? What are we here for? What is our purpose on earth?" To first go straight to the point, I wanted to ask these instead of skirting around the question. To my surprise, he answered with an unexpected question. "Do you mean us as humans or me as an individual?"  I replied that it would be best to explain both. "Let's start with human beings, as human beings our purpose is to procreate. It's to make sure that there is another generation." This outlook makes it seem as if humanity as a whole is worthless and acts the same as a virus; To replicate and reproduce. "As individual's that's where it gets tricky because every individual's meaning of life, every individual's purpose in life, it's different, it's catered toward them." This changes everything almost like a paradox as we together may be meaningless in the grand scheme but as small separate beings we are a diverse network of meanings molded by our surroundings and experiences. 

From this point he gets more personal. "For me personally, I think my meaning of life or my purpose in life is to live. It's to enjoy myself, challenge myself, push myself, learn from my mistakes and everything like that. Just to live as opposed to being he for a specific reason. Making people happy or finding like a cure to something." 

Asking yourself what your meaning in life is an important question but the next thing to ask yourself is how you are leading your life to coincide with that purpose. When asked this follow-up JH responded, "As a kid, as a teenager, it's kind of hard to find your purpose in life, to find your meaning of life but if you do find it it's also very hard to achieve it or live that way because your under the rules of other as a child. I feel like I'm starting to more now, I'm starting to do what I love, do what I want to do rather than doing what I'm 'supposed to do'. I feel like as you start to emancipate yourself, as I start to emancipate myself, I'll start living that life a lot more." He seems to be saying that there are prerequisites to having full control of a life and once enough aging and growth has been achieved more freedom to live by one's purpose is given. As a child is directed, an adult directs themselves. 

He mentioned in his definition of life that he wants to make people happy and live as he wishes but is not yet fulfilling that lifestyle. The question is where does he believe he will be with it in the future and where does he want to be? Again he stopped me to ask "Realistically or fantastically?" Again my answer was the same, it would be best to explain both. "Fantastically, I would rather, in the next ten years, be doing a job that I don't necessarily like but I would also be doing something I love that brings me money and connections and all the things I want to do. I would be having fun every day. I would be free from stress and burdens that come with being an adult...Realistically, I feel like I would go down a path that was predetermined for me. And It would give me money and connections and success but I wouldn't be as happy if I didn't choose my path that I actually set for myself." He really describes the idea of meaningless wealth. The idea tells us that doing things in the pursuit of money, power or fame, does not compare to the joy of doing things for your own happiness and/ or contentment. The things that mean something to you instead of more objects in your life. 

The way he asked if it would be a fantastic explanation or a realistic one was worrying. The proceeding question was  that because he sees two sides of a coin, what would need to happen to have them be one in the same? At first he stopped because it seemed he had not considered it before but replied "I have not experienced life enough where I live where I do what I wanna do, do what makes me happy, do what is fun to me. I have not lived that life long enough for me to come to a conclusion to know what needs to happen to live that way." This was a probable outcome of the question as it should be understood how long he has lived does not scratch the surface of what he can and will do. He is young which means only time will tell what happens; if he stays as he is or finds all the answers he needs. 

 

"JH hanging with me", 2020, CDH

As my class was to focus on the art of photojournalism, of course we must capture our subject. In this case it is JH and his meaning of life. To explain why I chose this picture, we clearly see JH in the center. At the time of taking this photo it was JH, another friend NK, and myself, hanging out, taking pictures, and having fun surrounded by these murals behind us in downtown Chicago. I got a good amount of light at a later time of the day due to the bright watch lights (this was in an alley). JH had been running around and then posed on the small ledge where I then took the picture, before running at the camera. It was good timing as any later or sooner, my camera would have given me a blurry outcome. I keep a grid on my photos and with that grid I can properly use the rule of thirds. I focused him as the center and got the colors of the background to make it impressionable. Because the photo had good color, light and little blur, no editing needed to be done. 

This AP was a close one. I had been thinking hard as to who I wanted to interview like if I picked someone from where I work or from where I play squash but decided a classmate may be an interesting option as I like asking friends harder questions and going back and forth with interesting topics. This AP made me ask myself the same question and truly I also do not know. Right now all I can think about or focus on is what's in front of me because the prospects of the future are scary. Anyways I hope you were able to question yourself while reading this as if you were the interviewee. I hope you have a good day, night or whatever time you are reading this.

-CDH