Written in Light, But Not Worth Reading

Sweet 16. I'm guessing that's what this is. I saw this photo outside the men's bathroom of a mall in Northwest Arkansas. It's a nice mall. And in the food court some photographer was advertising his services with a "gallery" of his work. I found this image arresting--for one it's placement directly outside of the men's bathroom. But it also seemed to sum up conservative Northwest Arkansas and George W. Bush's America. Are we to assume that this young lady has been given this Hummer for her birthday, thus warranting the happy occasion to be recorded in a professional photograph? And I'm not faulting the photographer--I dig the soft focus on the urban assault vehicle. I just question the thought process that went into composing this picture. Perhaps, with our nation at war, it was a way to show support for the troops? I doubt that, I'd guess she will be piling her friends in and driving to Sephora after school (it's in the same mall, so they could grab a slice of pizza and see her photo there too).
I had shown this photo to my friend Joy a while back. For some reason, she was moved enough by it to recreate her own "Corporate Sponsorship" version with the Alltel hummer.

I'm not sure what this proves other than that BOTH photos are pretty ridiculous. However, I would like to introduce this as a new feature of Why Your Life Sucks: Any loyal readers that wish to recreate a photograph, either one I publish here or a famous or infamous photo you possess, then please send both to me and I will add them to this very important gallery. Who knows, future generations may look back on this and learn much about our culture.
And I've been thinking about that--what does it say about a culture and what they choose to photograph, to record in light. In the early days, it was a special occasion for sure to gather the entire family around and have a family portrait photographed by a person not much removed from our friend displaying his work at the Rogers foodcourt. Here is a photograph taken many, many years ago of my father's family. My grandmother is on the far left.

I think with the decrease in cost and the rise of digital photography, we'll take pictures of just about anything now, yielding hard drives full of images that don't mean much, but we're reluctant to delete. I have a friend whose family asks non-relations to please stand in the crop-able position (on the sides of the frame) thus maintaining an image's relevance long after bitter break-ups. I think that's probably not a bad idea, especially after seeing so many disembodied arms on other people's myspace pages.
I'm not saying we should stop taking pictures. If anything, we should be taking more. I just hope they are worth looking at, say, a hundred years down the line.

P.S. My friend Joe Adams is back posting to his blog, check him out, he's hysterical. Also, Hudson finally finished that cup of tea and has written about a new book he's reading. And amazingly enough, Justin has figured out a way to post from all the way over in France. Here's hoping he can keep it up. Looks like fun.