October 10, 2014
Hopelessness is a universal emotion. At some point or another, we’re all going to feel like we have nothing substantial to turn to, nothing to rely on. These moments will make us question what we put our faith into, if anything at all. It will leave us contemplating, and unsure of where to go next. I thought this feeling of complete loss and isolation was best depicted in the poem “The Complaint,” especially in the following lines:
Why must I forever suffer loss,
Oblivious to gain,
Why think not upon the morrow,
Drowned in grief for yesterday?
Why must I attentive heed the
Nightingale’s lament of pain?
Fellow-bard, am I a rose, condemned
To silence all the way?…
See, the stream of blood is pouring
From our griefs, so long suppressed;
Hark, the cry of pain is throbbing in
Our dagger-riven breast
This part really hit home for me. The uncertainty, the doubt in this poem, these emotions are all so real to so many of us. I sought to capture this overwhelming feeling of contemplation and emotional loss in a photograph. After traversing Cambridge and Boston shooting photos of every interesting person I saw, I was lucky enough to capture these fleeting moments in photographs. These photos really inflicted a lot of pain on me when I saw them, and made me realize that, regardless of religion or background, every single one of us has these moments. Where we question everything, when we wonder what our purpose is, or if we are necessary in this huge system of life. Call it an existential crisis, or call it an emotional breakdown, we all know how this feels.
For me, I shot the security guard really quickly, from far away, on my way into the yard. I did it impulsively, as nothing really struck me as interesting about him. However when I uploaded the pictures onto my computer, his expressions completely blew me away. I thought it was such a powerful image. Being a security guard, especially at Harvard, his whole image embodies security and prestige, something concrete. Yet his expression is the complete opposite of secure. He seems lost, lost in thought and lost in himself.
The homeless man, I saw in Boston. They are all over the place, but this one was the only one I saw that didn’t have a collection jar in front of him. It was like he didn’t even care any more, he wasn’t even attempting to find a way to survive, or maybe he was tired of depending on other people for survival. I think that is the most important message that these pictures gave me, the idea that maybe the key to contentment and happiness is to be able to trust and have faith in yourself. At this moment, he can’t depend on himself. He doesn’t possess the basic necessities that we all deserve, and who does he have to blame for that? I don’t have the answers, but nevertheless, I thought it was an interesting idea. The idea that ultimately we are the only things that we can control. We have no power over the actions of God, or of other people. So what can we really have faith in?