Diversity & Body Language

Read pp. 407-421
Blog #5: "Seeing" #2 p. 419


Because photographer Nikki S. Lee positions people in her photographs in a very specific way, it shapes the perspective and attitude of each photograph by showing more emotion in connecting people to others in the picture.
In the first picture on page 407, The Ohio Project, Lee has what appears to be considered a “redneck” pictured beside an “Asian woman”. The woman is pictured sitting on the right side of the man, leaning onto him; towards him but also facing the photographer. Even though she is positioned sitting on the arm rest and seems to have a taller level in the picture, she is sitting to where she is behind him as if he is protecting her or that she might be a little “afraid” of him. While the man is focused on the ‘rifle’, the woman’s focus seems to be on the photographer (or elsewhere). Body language speaks more than words in all the photographs, I would say. In fact, according to Carmine Gallo, 55% of communication is visual (i.e. body language and eye contact. I first started drawing inferences from studying Lee’s images when I saw the first photograph of hers. The first photo I came upon seeing was The Ohio Project. The inferences I drew from this picture were that the man was probably a “redneck” due to the big Confederate flag hung up on the wall with “I ain’t coming down” stitched into it, the rifle he is holding, and the way he appears. I also thought that the woman in this picture was a little afraid of the man beside her because of her body language and they way she is positioned in the picture. I don’t think they are friends. The woman doesn’t seem to be wearing a wedding ring and same with the man. After flipping through and examining Lee’s pictures, I can see she has named them “projects”. My overall impression of Lee’s work is that she is very interested in taking pictures of many diverse people and groups. Lee seems to enjoy diversity.

By the end of this essay, GIRL, by Jamaica Kincaid, I can see a life full of routines (from the mother), disappointment (possibly), and unhappiness (more than likely). I see routines from all that the mother is saying:

“Wash the white clothes on Monday…wash the color clothes on Tuesday…”

It seems like the mother has a daily routine or at least knows when and how to do things/get things done when they need to be. I feel disappointment coming from the mother because of how worried she seems to be in trying to keep her daughter away from “sexuality”. The mother even goes far enough to “show” her how to make a medicine to get out of pregnancy, if it were to happen not at the “right” time.

“…on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming”

“…this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming”

“…this is how you behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming”

“…this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child”

The unhappiness is both coming from the girl and the mother. The best example I could find for this was:
“Always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?”

The mother interprets the question from the girl as a possibility that a baker could one day deny the girl to “touch” the bread. I see this as the mother thinking that the girl could possibly become a ‘slut’. Sexual denial, maybe as a metaphor? I feel like the girl thinks she is asking the mother a harmless question, but the mother takes it a different way. The mother is so worried/concerned about the girl’s sexuality that she thinks the girl is bent on becoming a slut. In this last part of the essay, Kincaid uses the word ‘touch’ as if it could be interpreted as a sexual thing.

I can see that this essay is written to where the speaker is more than likely a mother of a young girl (I got the feeling the girl was of around 12 years of age), where she, the mother, is talking to her daughter. The girl has not reached puberty yet or is close to. The mother and daughter invoked by the description live somewhere in the Caribbean (Barbados, St. Lucia, ETC.) due to the use of language. From some of the specific details of the essay (i.e. doukona and pepper pot), I can be certain that this takes place in Antigua and the Caribbean. I would describe the mother as a rather smart lady. She obviously knows how to take care of a household and herself. She cares about the girl to the point where she could be seen as brutally honest with her. She knows how to act around everyone and has a sense of social etiquette. There’s another side of the mother as well. I think she’s been through a lot of life’s experiences with men and relationships due to the “medicine” to pregnancy and all the advice given. To a point the mother seems bitter. Even though she’s trying to help the girl, I think she thinks that it might not do anything to ‘help’ the girl, and it’s frustrating to her. If this was a portrait, the mother would be the one portrayed. I can see this ending up with a chance that the daughter coming to resent her mother in the end when she gets older. Even though the mother is seen as trying to help the girl, it could also be seen as being too hard on a child.