WP1 - Prewriting Assignment 2

This picture can be described in one word - closeness. This image is cropped to focus entirely on a mother and her daughter. There is nothing else in the background.

The photograph could have been taken in other ways. We could have seen the girl in her hospital bed. There could be IV's and medicine in the background. Or perhaps we could have seen these mother and daughter outside of the hospital environment, perhaps going for a walk or having dinner. But the photographer instead decided to go in a different direction.

The focus on the people as opposed to the background or the conditions they are living through is also important. It made me think of the fact that people often label cancer as a disease, and it's victim's as a number. It's important to remember that these are real people being torn apart by this terrible disease. My grandma died of brain cancer, and one of my good friend's is losing his mother to breast cancer. These are terrible things that are happening all over the world, and in this case our focus is brought to a little girl who has had to grow up so fast.

This photograph didn't use any color. And I think the person who took this did it for a reason. Color is often synonymous with happiness, feeling and good things happening in life. Perhaps the photographer intentionally made this photo black and white to demonstrate what might be missing from life when someone has cancer. It's a powerful method of ethos to show us that while life goes on when you fight a battle with cancer, it can take away the very things that make it so special. Hope and happiness, freedom and relaxation.

While the picture is black and white, the people in it are certainly not. This image was clearly not taken for a family album or for friends. I think it was taken to show the world. The girl is sending a powerful message of ethos. We know she is sick, and that she is struggling. But she has not given up. She is still fighting. And she can still smile in a dark world. Her presence lights up this frame, and in a way overpowers the lack of saturation in the photograph.

Overall I feel this picture used elements such as cropping, focus and desaturation to tell a vivid story in just one snapshot. The cropping shows two people, and the focus is on what this disease has done to the, and how they have responded to it. The lack of color I says that cancer takes something from you. But their pathos shows that love can overcome anything, and gives us a powerful feeling of ethos. We care about the people in the image, and we want this little girl to get better.