A moment without context

I like to flit about the internet. Check out several news sites, pop culture sites, blog sites...whatever strikes me at the moment. The thing I indulge in is sites that have "pictures of the day/week".

The picture of this child playing chess really got me. At first I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of a young face looking so completely stressed, but suddenly I was confronted with a familiarity with his expression. Oh god here she goes again! The plate is piled high my friends and the meatballs are wobbling...this little guy playing and strategizing chess shows an emotion that I feel particularly close to in my own experience. I think I could make the allusion to academia and everyday life being much like the game of chess....it is all in the moves you make. One false move and checkmate! I have learned in the last couple of weeks that in the realm of academia there are certain egos and personalities that require stroking and adherence to their whims. I of course struggle with this mostly because this kind of environment is completely unknown to me, put me in an environment with people who are working poor, who have addictions, who are undereducated and I flourish, I understand, I navigate...the people on the hill though, I am constantly confused, frustrated and stunted. And the levels of bureacracy that exists in such a small space blows my mind and yet gives me insight into why the government never seems to get anything right or is able to communicate in a timely fashion.

So, the kid agonizing over his next move and his face contorts to reflect this...that is the inner me everyday I wake up...lately.

Now, I am still flipping through the pictures and I come across a fashion show. A particular angle of fashion where all the cameras are clustered together and focussed on the women who is wearing who ever's latest fashion. I know that Spain has made a vocal committment to not allowing anymore starved models to strut their run ways...but I wonder how feasible that is, especially when it is more than designers, producers and sponsors that are focussed on fashion runways. All those cameras, all those eyes, multiplied by readership...that kind of pressure is unavoidable.

Although I do like the framing of the picture that picks up on the crazy making of so many cameras to capture one superfluous moment.

But now I am moving on to yet another picture which ultimately breaks my heart...a child holding a gun...a girl child. So I am guilty of being privileged enough to be raised in a culture that believes and supports 'childhood' and that also here in Canada we are relatively untouched by the kind of violence that is witnessed in other countries. Of course I am still tied to those notions that women are nurturers and not warriors...on the domestic front women are warriors, but on the battle field I envision we are peacemakers. Of course I fight against all my cultural values and tried to shed the pregivens and taked for granted notions of gender and age...but I still react to the picture of an girl holding a toy gun in protest...how long before that gun becomes real?

Of course I also have to acknowledge the lack of deep context that a picture affords the viewer. This particular scene and the above scenes are selected to evoke a response and also as part of a selling feature...I know these moments are being exocitised as the other...a way to position myself against something and my values against, with very little information or insight to what is really going.