Self-Potrait Draft

While we are walking around anywhere, we never think to stop and look around at what's around us, or to even stop and take a simple photo of what we see. However, while I was walking around in downtown Plattsburgh, I stopped and took all of these photos mainly because they were things that stood out to me while walking around and exploring this new town that I am now living in. I mainly took all of these photos because living in New York City, you don't really see these things in the middle of the downtown area. In the city, you only see busy streets with people rushing by and very tall buildings that take up almost every block. While taking these photos, I didn't see any kind of connection between them, but upon further analyzing them I noticed that in almost every picture, a journey of some sort seems to be in almost every single one of them, such as the train tracks, two pathways, and the sail boat. Another connection in the photos is stability with the high tower, statue, and the picture of the water. The two most common themes in the photos however are traveling and wanting to make it to a certain place in life no matter what may be in the way. These photos show how life is really different in other places and that we have grown to know is not always the same in all parts of the world.


While looking at these photos and deciding what to use on my blog, I came across this picture of train tracks. Now one looking at this picture would simply say, " What's so special about this picture of train tracks?" We often see train tracks around us many times and think nothing of it because it is so common. Just like I thought, what can be so special about train tracks, there's no person or any kind of words in the picture so what can they mean to anyone? However, have you ever thought to relate those train tracks to your life in any way? In the photo that I took of the train tracks, I saw many things in my life that related to me through analyzing the photo thoroughly. I saw my journey from being a kid into a now growing adult in college, the stability of my life through the tracks being there, and the support and learning from my friends, family, and experiences with the trees surrounding the tracks.

In the tracks, we know that a train travels from one place to another, well in this I see the journey of becoming an adult in it. As we go through life, we do nothing, but get older and older, there is no going back such as when the train goes forward on the tracks, it can't go back to where it came from. In the photo, we can't see a definite beginning or end in it, this is like how we don't remember what happened when we were a baby and how we don't know whats to happen for us in our life. The tracks give off a mysterious vibe because we can not tell if it is still in use or where they exactly go. This is exactly like my life, in which I do not know where my studies in college will take me or what will happen to me as I become independent while being away from home right now. In these tracks I see how my past mistakes may or may not help me in my life because I can't see that they are behind me and I do not know if they will follow me into my future. The tracks to me represent a journey from an uncertain past into a bright unknown future.