Sacrifice or Privilege

Photography has been breaking the rules and changing minds since it was introduced to the world. It has been used as a platform for people to express themselves, to show the cruelty in the world, but also just how beautiful it can be. Photographs over the years have been able to show the ever changing and modernizing idea of the American Dream. At the same time, it is also able to demonstrate how it can be seen as the American Nightmare. Photographs are also often used to try and evoke emotion from the audience. Photographs showing hungry children in dark and filthy homes during the great depression to now showing the devastation of natural disasters. Ideas like these are shared throughout Guimond and Alinder’s writings about photography.  

Guimond’s main purpose of writing his piece was to show what the American Dream is and the connection it has with photography. He was able to write about how photography was shaping how people viewed the world because the world was entering troubled times. It proves that pictures are able to evoke emotion and inform an audience without having to use any words. Guimond states just that in his chapter Dreams and Documents "The images in this book share is that they were all, in a variety of ways, intended to overcome or disprove some false, superficial, or stereotyped viewpoints about their “ordinary” subjects.” Alinder’s main points of his writing was to demonstrate that pictures are able to represent the tragedy and what the American Nightmare looks like. One quote made by Alinder is a prime example of the nightmares that Americans had to deal with during war time. “I have talked to a lot of men who have been in the middle of if -the fighting- and what they say rings true- not what the professional “social chanter” constructs…” 

The picture I chose to represent my idea of the American Dream is one of the Old Capitol. To me and many other students on this campus the Old Capitol is an example iconography for this university and that this a place of education. The Old Capitol symbolizes education as a prominent building on this campus. To me the American Dream is many things, but one point of it is accessibility to education.  As Americans we often take for granted the access to education that we have. As someone who knows they want to go into higher education, having accessibility to education is huge. This picture represents the sacrifices that were made to get students to this very point. Sacrifices could range from a single mother working three jobs to ensure that her kids will be able to attend college.  At the same time, it also shows just how privileged we are to be here. We are privileged to live in a country that allows us to further our educations and to expand our experiences.