Assignment 2: Keitai Phenomena: Emotions

Emotions

When you are down and alone, what do you do?

What if you don't want to burden your friend by calling her?

You need comfort, you need to speak out. 

What do you do?

Camera:  a memory-capturing device, a communicative device, and an expressive device. 

With mobile camera phones, the mobility it gives to us increases the opportunities to take photographs. That means we are able express ourselves and present our unique view of the world to others better.

The collection of the 4 images below depicts the emotions evoked/state of mind during moments where camera may be too bulky/depressing to express the negative feelings one may have. This is where camera phone images occupy a niche that is more personal, fleeting, and commonplace’. (Okabe & Ito, 2006)

Desperation

Devastation

Frustration

Seclusion

To some, these pictures might be brushed off as being mundane and trivial, but as Richard Chalfen argues, personal photography is ‘primarily a medium of communication’. Put yourself into the shoes of the photographer and imagine the emotional curve she is experiencing and perhaps you may find days where you can relate to the feelings depicted.