Photo Essay -- What do you see?

For my photo essay, I ended up going with my third idea; I took a series of photographs of seven peoples’ various features and/or possessions that were important to them. I arranged the photos for each individual into a 3x3 square with the person’s eye as the center square. My initial plan was to then show the person his/her compilation of photos and ask what they see. However, I soon realized that this method would only produce a description of what they think other people see since what I asked them to describe would be nothing more than their perception of the pieces I choose to see of them through my camera. The solution to this problem was to simply ask each person how he/she perceives himself/herself with the qualifying statement that it should not include things that someone could tell just by looking at them. Their resulting answers served as the captions.

In the end, I think this project became extremely interesting. It tells not only a story of inevitable uniqueness but also of individual perception and personal identity. These photos display an honest array of perceived identities. They challenge us to consider how we judge and perceive others (especially during a time in our lives where some of the greatest changes will occur in our personal development); as you look at this series of photographs it is intriguing to compare your perception of the subject with their own. Additionally, they raise the question of how you perceive yourself as well as how others perceive you. So ultimately, the question remains: What do you see?