photography, spring semester sophomore year

Self Evaluation of the Final Project-Kacey Harasimowicz

In my photographic journey for this final project, I chose to explore the topic of work and why people do it. Being in a point in my life where I work at a burger joint and am majoring in something I have no idea how to utilize, this project was more than just a way to practice photography. It was and is a study of finding some sort of purpose in life through a career.

            At the beginning, I planned on photographing and interviewing ten people in varied places of work and using one image per shoot. I soon realized that there was no way I could capture both the emotion and the action of work in one image. In the narrowing of my project down to five subjects, I gained a better focus, but lost the sense of unity within the series. For a while, the project became a group of character studies that were in-depth but disjointed from each other, and therefore the whole purpose of my project was scattered. All my shooting done, I had to sit down and figure out what information I wanted to present through my photos, and that involved tearing apart everything I had been focused on. In my frustration, I asked my professor, Ellen, for whatever help she could offer. She took all my images, picked the best ones, and put them all in a line from lightest to darkest, based on the changing light of each day. That literally hurt me to see. She had picked my best images compositionally, but had taken three from one subject and one from another and put the property manager next to the McDonald’s general manager and the nurse next to that. Needless to say, I took the idea home to sleep on it.

            Where was the purpose behind each job? I could not see any. The single image of the day care worker barely showed her face, and the two pictures of the property manager were separated by at least five other images. How would people know that the job involved both personal interaction with tenants and loads of paperwork? How would they see the ties between the mundane tasks and the fulfilling ones? In the midst of this struggle, I thought back to the interviews I had done with my subjects. One stood out to me in particular; the subject had said that all jobs, no matter how meaningless they may seem to a bystander, fit together like a puzzle in order to keep the world moving. I then understood why Ellen had mixed my photos together. Lesson learned: No career in which you interact with other people can be just about itself. Sure, you can find personal fulfillment in your career, but what good does it do if it does not help others in some way? We are all interconnected. Of course the property manager has the responsibility to evict students who didn’t pay their rent, but he also has the privilege of giving turkeys and mashed potatoes to the students who cannot make it home for Thanksgiving. Sure, the McDonald’s general manager works mostly with teenagers who come and go on a summer basis, but she is able to find joy in the ones who grow up under her mentorship and cry on her shoulder when they leave for a new job.

            I saw these beautiful things in all of the subjects I photographed, these things that give their work meaning. Yet I also saw the day-to-day journey these people have to take in order to see that meaning realized. It’s not fun and games when you work with three-year-olds at a daycare where if one kids gets sick with a runny nose, all the kids get sick with runny noses. It’s not all happiness in healing when your patient is a state-supported drunk who checks into the hospital on a regular basis for a nice meal.

 

            These two things in combination, the positive impact on others and monotonous tasks of the day-to-day, are what I chose to represent in my final project. Expanding upon Ellen’s inspiration, I laid my images out in a way that walks the viewer through a day in the life of a person at work. These results were based on the interviews I conducted with each subject.

 In the first image, we see the farmer in a tractor. It is an image of him, but we cannot see his face. The farmer starts his day off early, often before the morning light, and is essentially faceless. No one sees the work that he does but himself.

In the second, there is the property manager and an assistant, sharing as coworkers in order to complete a task. Depending on the day, this relationship may be a curse or a blessing, yet always a challenge.

Thirdly, we join the nurse in her journey down the spotless halls of a place that while providing rest and rejuvenation for its patients, gives to its workers stress and long, late nights of constant movement.

Next we are captured by the gaze of a small child, a creature whose well-being is for many the reason they work nine-to-five every day of their lives. While those people work, they leave their treasures with another person who is willing to dedicate a part of themselves to what they do.

Halfway through the day, we pause for a moment of rest and reflection. Perhaps we think only of the mission in front of us, but maybe we are thinking about the bigger picture, about the son who is graduating or the father who is sick. How are we going to get through the rest of the day and still have energy for family or friends?

There being little time for rest, we are then faced with the challenge that makes each day different from the rest. It is the one that challenges us, forces us to be resourceful, and makes us, and maybe someone who looks up to us, a stronger person.

We see the nurse again, this time she is in a situation where she is doing what her job requires of her even though the patient is playing up his illness. Sometimes, we have to put on a game face and remember that we might change a life by accident.

Nearing the end, it takes every last ounce of will to make us finish the paperwork. We know it is just part of the requirements that keep our job available to us. We are lucky to have it, and maybe someday we can hire someone else to do out paperwork for us.

At the conclusion of the day, we have to have something to show for the hard work we have done. We can find fulfillment in the compliments of our superiors who witness the fruit of our labor.

In the last image, we see that the work is never done even as the sun sets on the day. We carry our work with us as we juggle finances and put food on the table, so that when the next day comes we will have renewed drive to work yet again. We can learn to thrive in this cycle of challenge and then fulfillment.

For this project, I was able to utilize the skills I developed throughout this photography course. Putting myself in work environments that I had never been in before challenged me to be fluent in the language of my camera and how it was going to explain what I was seeing. I had to quickly adjust the settings according to various lighting situations, from tungsten to window light to direct sunlight. I did not want my subjects to pose, so I was forced to explore each space and find new angles to make the images interesting without manipulation. Lastly, I developed my ability to talk to my subjects in a way that would keep them comfortable and natural-looking in the present of a stranger with a camera.

Throughout this journey, while fine-tuning my photographic techniques, I discovered some aspects of work that will remain with me in whatever future endeavors I pursue. In many ways, this assignment was a reflection of those aspects. This course, and ultimately my college career, was very much a type of job. It required day-to-day detailing and constant repetition, but the long hours in the lab with talented people and great conversation grew me in many ways. I can only hope that whatever work I do in the future is as fulfilling.