My perception is not your reality

I think that when I look at a photograph at first glance I absolutely have a bias approach. What I mean by bias is that I know the context of a photo normally before I get a chance to see it. When I am looking through a family photo album I am in search of revisiting a holiday or celebration that was documented. I want to remember all of the events about the night that allow me to revisit an emotion. When I look at photos other places like in a newspaper or magazine, they are normally paired with a caption that tells you what to focus on in the photograph. Although I felt like I was personally viewing these photos and focusing on what drives me emotionally I realized that that is not the case.

An interesting concept we reviewed in class was “how we look produces what we will see.” This phrase refers to the stadium, or the dominant way of seeing based on societal influence. The stadium would be the way a photo is staged or presented that influences how we interpret the meaning. There is another way of viewing photos which is the punctum approach where there is something insignificantly significant that “wounds the viewer” making it difficult to look at the standard stadium approach. When we viewed the Christmas card from class we were automatically inclined to think that this was a happy family enjoying a nice Christmas holiday together. As we allowed ourselves to “think outside of the box” there were other things in the photo that were important and could have told a completely different story.

So when it comes to Loren Cameron and other photos that are included in critical readings of photography that addresses the relation between trans/gender embodiments and the medium of photography I thought it was interesting that that Jay Prosser wrote a piece focusing on a palinode. He revisited the his previous critiques of certain photographs and made some adjustments and changed some of his arguments for some. I have no experience in critiquing photos, especially not in a trans/gender context, but I did notice some things in Loren Cameron’s photo that distracted me from focusing on other things in the photo.

citation

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/sexual-identity-2963/Photos#tab-Photos/0

http://www.radicalroles.blogspot.com/

The first photo that I looked at was the photo with Cameron injecting himself with a needle. Without knowing any background information on Cameron I would’ve taken him as a hetero- normative steroid injecting body builder. Cameron has a ripped body, and his body is presented in a way that body builders have used in a competition to display all of their muscles. Also I notice that Cameron has many tattoos which are also typical of someone that is into body building. In this photo Cameron’s genitalia is hidden so there is no way to tell if he has a penis or not. As far as this photo is staged I really do not see anything that could serve as a punctum. Unless there was a caption I again would not feel like this was a transgendered photo. However with that “frame” the photos changes its meaning a little bit. I would say that he may be trying to hide his genitalia instead of being proud and displaying his biological difference. Also I would say the picture is in black and white so that his mastectomy scars were less visible. I would also assume that the injection is testosterone or another male hormone. It is very interesting how knowledge can influence you about something that you are seeing with your own eyes.

This photo is different from the first because it shows Cameron with clothes on. He is standing in front of a motorcycle with his shirt off and has tattoos. I again would just think of him as a hetero-normative biker guy who is simply hanging out looking for a good time. Without any labels I wouldn’t look for an atom’s apple or a bulge in his pants. The focus of the photo may even be the motorcycle, without knowing that this photo was suppose to show a trans person.