Final Project

"If I looked up_____ in the dictionary, there would be a picture of you next to it."

 

 

When I first got started planning this project, I knew that I wanted to look at what defines us. What better place to find what defines us than in the dictionary? The dictionary is thought of as a golden truth that grants us infinite knowledge about the words in the English language. Looking up something in the dictionary always leads to the correct answer, so I wanted to take something less stable and less clear to compare to the words in the dictionary. I chose humans. I really wanted to explore the idea that a person’s personality can be described in a few “concrete” words.  I wanted to reflect on a few questions like:  can one word describe a person’s entire personality, with so many words in the dictionary why do we pick certain words,and can a person embody an entire word just from their looks?

Everyone has heard the phrase, “If I looked up ___ in the dictionary, there would be a picture of you next to it.” This is a very strong idea, because the picture of the person literally helps describe the word and vice versa.  Through this project, I asked my subjects to pick two words, one negative and one positive, about themselves. After printing on the page, I found myself thinking of the person differently. I felt like I had insight into their personality by seeing their picture next to the page. Most of the people I photographed I knew previously, but I still felt like I was exploring their personal perfection and flaws. I saw the people transform into definitions before my very eyes. I smiled when I saw their positive words and I was enveloped by sadness when I saw their negative words. I saw these words contradict, and their bodies getting blacked out and put next to their mistakes.

It is almost like a mug shot, because the subject has picked their own life sentence to an adjective in the pages. Although most people can evolve and change in their lifespan, the pictures in the pages are permanent. I made the prints with only one dictionary. There were no start overs or tweaks. I feel like this resembles the idea of how hard it is to change one’s personality and how hard it is to shake off a negative word about you once it had been said. I believe that if I gave these pictures to a stranger, they would like think that they knew more about the person even if they never met the in their live. To see the picture is one thing, to actually see a face is another.  Anyone who sees this project, can judge the person on the dictionary page freely by their picture and their word. It is almost an intimate idea, my subjects have let themselves be judged, but at the same time they have forced to reflect and judge themselves.