David Steword

This photo of five girls eating sushi has just won the @nationalportraitgallery's Taylor Wessing prize 2015.

“I have always had a fascination with the way people interact", explains David Stewart, who took this photo. "While the girls are physically very close and their style and clothing highlight their membership of the same peer group, there is an element of distance between them.”

David Stewart mentions an element of distance between this four girls but he doesn’t impart which element to us. My opinion is that this mysterious element is their history.

Our lives are like close books which the others just can see the title, our name. People think they know someone just for talking with her or him or worst, knowing her name. The majority of societies believe that we can know the life of someone with social media.  Here we can talk about appearance. Everybody have a false outward look so with social media people show you just what they want to show you.

This photography is merely the front cover of the book of these five girls. We don’t know their story, their past, present and future feelings, bad or happy moments they will shape. We see an image that it doesn’t always reflect the reality. I think we must be careful with appearances.

We are not silent. We are waiting!

An environmental activist makes a powerful statement at the first #EarthDay on 22^nd of April 1970.  Each year the 22^nd of April marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

It’s a fact, climate change and it is happening now. Global temperatures are already on the rise, impacting us all, especially the world’s most vulnerable people.

 If we wait it’s the same than staying in silent. One day we will wake up in a dark and grey world like this photograph. We have to fight to stop global warming. For me the blossom of, probably the last tree of a future world represent the fight. Nothing is more beautiful than an explosion of colors, like the festival of colors in India, Holi. In this case I’m talking about the colors of a healthy world.

Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center. I’m pretty agree about their request. I think if we fight for healthy worlds this is include stopping the war but in the other direction no.

This photograph can be the future but we don’t know the future for this reason we can chose which future we want for us and the future generations.

The famous kiss of City Hall!

Robert Doisneau (1912 – 1994) is a humanist photographer known. This is a photo of Robert Doisneau form after the war where two lovers are kissing in the turbulence of a 1950’s Paris. A picture in black and white that we must, from my opinion, classify in the romantic cliché. It reflects nostalgia or homesickness and joy. I admit that these adjectives are contradictory but when a war is coming and love is in the air everything is possible. Don’t you think so?

At the end what goes around comes around. The years may pass but the love will be remaining and very probably, sadly, it will continue to have wars.

It’s something frighten to know that our technology can destroy our planet ten times or more.  That means we have to act with humanity and solidarity for stop wars. We never have to surrender because we have one planet and one life.

The people of this picture look like they know where they go and no one can stop there. In fact, I hear somewhere that Paris is the city where people know what they want: earning a living. The unique thing can stop this citizen is the feeling of love and this picture is representing it perfectly. 

Libre, seule et assoupi (Free, alone and asleep)

I will talk about the book Libre, seul et assoupi (Free, alone and asleep), of Romain Monnery.

Welcome to the world of work! All the people with a master who are coming to fail, each year, as a shoal of fish in panic out on the shores of non-employment have finally found their spokesman. In this book, Libre, seul et assoupi, Romain Monnery describes a sub-mode of life in a manner jubilant and corrosive. This book was adapted in a film call Free and asleep of Benjamin Guedj. I read the book and I see the film and I love both, it makes me think a lot about our society.

Some phrases of the book I would like to comment on:

 The main character, called in the film Sébastien alias “the other”, said in the book: I am someone who prefers dream her life sooner than live it. I not agree at all about his philosophy, my opinion is that it’s better life his dreams than dream his life.

Another phrase was: We are defined only about what we do and not what we are. I completely agree that the actual society stick etiquettes for what we do. But we know people are inclined to do the opposite to what they say. This reminds me of a citation: Do what I say not what I do. (film / book)

Sociocultural evolution (opinion)

We say that actually, comparing to years before, society evolves a lot. Since the technique of science becomes technology the society improvement faster than before. I’m completely agree that invention change our life but I think the human mentality has stayed the same during years and years before. If we look the medieval conflicts and the actuals are more or less the same. All this war is for power, money and different religions. The unique difference are weapons, so the technology, the way people use the technology, made it different. Otherwise nothing are progressing. 

Forget (opinion)

Forget, a word so easy to say but so difficult to do. When something is hurting you, you would like to blew the memory to forget it. The problem is that isn’t possible. Try to forget it’s a long fight between the world and yourself. We have to know that the best friend in these moments is time. Give time to time, I mean in these moments we must be patient and allow time to do things.

I read somewhere that people can get used to anything. Perhaps you will never forget it but you will accept it.

Live in the moment (opinion)

To live is to discover. If one day we know our future we would not have more motivation to live, it will already be lived. For example: When you have already seen a movie you generally do not watch it a second time.

When people say I would like to know the future to take the correct decision, for me it’s the same as say something like I would like to take my life’s book and read it.

We have to stop being afraid at our future and live the moment because before the moment it is not the moment and after it is no more the moment. So don’t live nor in the past nor in the future just live the present, the moment.

Ignorance (opinion)

Is ignorance so bad? People usually think it but sometimes I believe the better solution it's to not know the truth or what's happen. I often heard "the truth eventually comes out ".

I'm thinking about the attempt in Paris. One afternoon I was looking at the news of Paris when I ask me: You think it’s better to don't know what is happening and to don't be afraid to what can happen to my sisters who live in Paris or to know what is happening to have arguments when we speak about this. I finally continue to look at the news to understand the reason of the appalling acts of this terrorist.

Look at your plate (opinion)

My mum always tell me "Look at your plate" when I compare myself to my sisters. I don't know for you but for me it's really hard to do not compare myself to others. It is so easy look at others. In the present day see the life of others is so easy with social media. You have millions of summaries of lives that with just one click you can see all these clothes you don't have and you would like to have or travels you never could live. In the past, books made you dream but now people live your dreams for you.

Can the language we speak affect our behaviour? (opinion)

When you chose to learn a language take your time to choose it. My opinion I think it is really important. In fact I think this because I did a short work about “How languages affect our behavior”. When you know a language you absorb a culture and this can change your behavior. I suppose you believe it’s more complex than this, and it’s is. But I want to clarify my opinion. I think the language you learn makes you see the world in a different way and I believe it changes your behaviour. For this reason when you chose a language instead of others look at the attitude of the people who speak the language as their native language. If you like their comportment you are in the correct direction because you surely will act like them. 

ABORIGINE WALKABOUT

For thousands of years Australia’s first people have been intricately connected to the land. They are custodians with spiritual and environmental obligations and see the land as a living entity. Travelling their respective country and understanding every aspect of the landscape is a uniquely Aboriginal tradition that non-Indigenous defined this tradition with the word ‘walkabout’.

The aborigine walkabout: Many aborigines Australia send their young men into the wilderness for up to 6 months to test whether they are ready to become men. The boys must survive, unassisted, and keep themselves totally isolated. When they return after 6 months they will be considered men of the tribe.

 ‘Walkabout’ indisputably belongs to Australia’s Aboriginal culture and it has long fascinated Australians. The concept first surfaced in Australian popular culture in the magazine titled Walkabout in 1934 that combined cultural, geographic, and scientific content with travel literature. Then in the 1950s the Australian Broadcasting Corporation screened a TV series called Australian Walkabout.

(My opinion)

I choose this rite of passage after read a lot of different ones. Indeed I thought that this rite of passage was the worst one but instead it was the less dangerous. Of course it is dangerous but everything can be more or less dangerous so my point of view is that the Aborigine Walkabout is less than others. I think in the third world no one is able to experiment something like this. It’s impressive to know that there are still people able to survive alone 6 months in the wilderness. People with the necessary knowledge for take care himself and survive.