Photography at its best, life at its worst

by Amelia Gonzales, feature editor        

If I were to come up to someone and try explaining to them that the sky is flaming hot pink or screaming neon green, I’m sure anyone would beg to differ.

Why? Well, because it’s obviously blue. It always has been and will never change.

So I ask myself constantly why so many people believe that growing up without the latest technological accessory, or with a single mother, or without the opportunities others have, is out of the norm. I grew up in a neighborhood and went to a school where imperfections were frowned upon. It was segregation at its best but believed to be non-existent to many.

Recently, I had a conversation with one of the photographers in my publications class about the beauty that one can find in the bad.

She was showing me some of her photos, which just blew my mind. The funny thing is, the photos are amazingly so realistic that I realized how much people in general forget about the beauty that surrounds them each and every day.  Some of her photos are the outside nature at its best, but the majority of her photography is of the urban culture. It is the culture that tends to get people to turn the other way or to pretend that it just does not exist.

Some of the photos that I was fortunate to see included a woman who has obviously had her fair share of struggles in the streets, to a local drug store where one can find prescriptions, milk, clothing, as well as the latest gossip. The photos tell a story of struggle, yet share the beauty at which so many curl up their noses to.

As I looked at the photos and thought about the type of writing that I want to do in the future, I realized that so many of us, including me, tend to hide or downplay what we really have witnessed all of our lives or what we even really think deep inside. I began to tell her that there are times when I have some of the greatest ideas about what to write, but many times I change my word choice in order to either make it sound better or to keep it from sounding to harsh for others.

After telling her this, she said the one thing that has just changed my thinking in general. She told me the first words and thoughts are those that matter. She went on to explain that those are the words that belong to you, and that no one can take them away. Taking a word or an idea at its most simplistic form has obviously proven to me that simplicity can be some of the best work anyone has ever seen or heard. The “harshness” is something that should not be downplayed just because one might find it offensive.

I understand that people have that right to be offended by certain ways of life. They have that right to turn their heads, to not listen, and to believe that people do have choices. There is nothing wrong with living in a closed-minded world, for some anyway. For those who are open to new ideas or to the things others object to, their imaginations, creativity, and opportunities are much larger and will never have limits.

The conversation itself was simple. The things we were talking about were things that I knew had exsisted since before my time, such as the old railroad tracks behind the abandoned warehouses where the homeless find shelter in the east side of town, the 40-cent Coke machine in the south side of town,  the 50-cent woman who would dance for 50 cents, and, of course, the guy walking down the street with his back pockets down to his knees. These are the things that many see but never associate themselves with for their own reasons.

The idea that this urban culture has taken the nicknames such as “the ghetto,” “the bad side,” “the less economical side of town” (which really means the “poor side of town”). just blows me away. First, it makes me wonder how or why someone would constitute the images on this girl’s photos as undervalued when they have never had the chance to value them. Secondly, all of my life I have wondered why someone’s income or the things they have are what defines them and automatically raises a big red flag about whether people decide to involve themselves.

Even though I grew up in a neighborhood where screaming babies were never seen outside on the front porch with nothing on but a diaper, and I never worried about having to wake up to gunshots ringing through the house, I have always associated myself with people who have. I dated what people would call “gangsters and thugs”. I have had friends who have had to sell drugs in order to feed their families. I have even had friends that I will never see again because they are doing sentences as long as 20 to life.

I was fortunate enough to make the smarter choices in life because my parents worked hard to provide that for my brother and I. Others I have known did not have those same opportunities, and they never will. I know that people in slumps are able to get themselves out. But at the same time, I also know that sometimes that is just not an option for them.

Looking at the photos told me a story that I have always known, a story that undoubtedly has interest, a long with the ability to scare people into thinking they must lock their doors anytime they are around these people and the neighborhoods they come from. In reality, they are just like everyone else, including those who fear them. The only difference is that society will always portray this image as a negative image, one that will always have others thinking how there can be any beauty in something so bad.

Look away from society’s portrayl and open your eyes to simplicity, representation of negativity, and, most importantly, the beauty that for every good there is bad. So many of us were fortunate enough to live the good, while others HAD to live the bad.

Embrace what has been available to you, whatever it may be, and fear not what others have never had available.