Image Story Impact

I am an indecisive person. So "alternately" assignments kind of stress me out.

I got over it.

Once I just decided to do both.

As for the image story from online that has impacted (that is passive voice and is terrible) me, I choose the raising of the flag over Iwa Jima.The whole story (according to Wikipedia) can be read here. It was the second flag raised over the island that day, since the higher ups decided the first was too small to be seen from surrounding territories and also wanted the first flag as a souvenir. The "real" story behind the image itself is highly disputed. There are questions often raised about the authenticity of the shot-- whether or not Rosenthal staged the photo. There are questions regarding the identity of the soldiers. There are more serious moral questions about the bond campaign that the soldiers were forced to be a part of in the days following the battle. So much emotion wrapped up in a single image that ultimately exists today to rally support around the Marine Corps.



For a long time, that's all I saw it as. A victorious, patriotic image-- no questions asked. And it is that. Look at all of the reproductions, the statue, the museum. Then, on a college searching trip to Virginia with my parents, I saw Clint Eastwood's 2006 Flags of our Fathers. I knew at that point that I wanted to study history in college, but this helped create for me a new idea of history. There is what we see, and then there is the story behind that image. There is not a lot about history-- that which is written about the past-- that is true. There is just strength in the collection of many perspectives.

I got to see the statue in D.C. on that same trip and I fell in love again with history and the new perception of it that was forming. The idea that you can question events, research them, and come to a conclusion regarding them that is your own based on the evidence that is not at all your own.

As for an image from my own life-- it's slightly less heavy.



What is happening here, you ask? So one day my roommate Claire (you may know her) got herself locked out on our balcony at the crack of dawn. Of course, Katie and I were not yet awake. Or conscious, apparently. So Claire knocked and knocked and knocked. Near tears, she banged. Fist and all. (You know where this is going).

Until, presto. Katie and I never really heard a thing. Or we at least heard something but failed to investigate. Thus we were left to wake up and find this note, hours later. It's quite cryptic.



(when Claire came home we reenacted it. Hence, the photograph.)