As I began walking from Lehigh’s campus down towards 4th Street with a flimsy cardboard frame in hand an overwhelming feeling came over me that I had not anticipated. When I had previously thought about what I might feel or experience when I set out to perform this experiment, I had imagined that I would see the world in completely different light. I imagined deeper greens in leaves, a bluer sky, and a rediscovery of the beauty of our world. I expected brief a rush of feelings of gratefulness and love. However, when I made my first left onto the busy streets of South Bethlehem and held my frame in front of my face all I could pay attention to was the judging eyes of others around me. I felt insecure. I realized how odd I had looked.
As one might assume, my highly romantic expectations about how I might after completing this assignment were not really met. From a visually standpoint, everything looked relatively the same. The only discrepancy was the giant poorly constructed frame that obstructed my every view. However, despite my slight disappointment resulting from my poor assumptions, I still feel that I took a lot away from this assignment.
The frame did not change necessary magnify the beauty of what I saw, but it did change how I perceived my surroundings in two ways. Firstly, walking with the frame really called me to slow down and really notice the special qualities of my environment. It stopped to notice the diversity in the people in both class and race, I realized the details in the architecture of the buildings, and I took note of smells and sounds gave the environment new life. Secondly, doing this assignment gave me new opportunity and to reimagine the city in a new life. I could see every shot as a smaller part of a bigger fictional story. Joggers became secret agents in pursuit of stopping evil and statues outside of the Banana Factory became relics of the dead in a horror film. I feel that this experience caused me to think a bit about how prospective and information can really shape a story.
In hindsight, I realized that the people who stared at me were missing the larger picture. Walking around with a cardboard in front of my face was not all that was weird about this assignment. What was truly weird was that I was taking a moment to really take in and understand the scenes of everyday life in South Bethlehem. This is not something I do often enough.