Visual Essay:
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Project Statement:
What is it about?
Have you thought about what will you be after getting old?
It is a fact that our age will keep increasing when time past. We will go through our life with different stages. From babies, kids, teenagers, adults, and we will be elderly and die in one day. If there is no accident and stop our time, we need to face a bunk of problems that comes up in the elderly stage.
According to the World Health Organization, the definition of being old is with the age of 60 or over. (Wrld Health Organization, 2018) No matter what kind of gender, nation, and religion you are, we all need to face this with the age increased. In Hong Kong, you will be retired by the company because of the policy. It means that if you are 45 or above now, you may need to start the planning of your life without the income from working.
You will need to face the changes in your appearance. Collagen will lose as time passed, and the state of the skin performance will go downwards. With the loss of collagen, the skin starts to lose electricity, and hard to keep water inside. It will dry up easily and cracked as the water is hard to keep inside. The perfect skin will be replaced by the sagging skin. Winkle and blemish will start to show up on the skin, especially on the face. We will lose muscle and body shape as we start to lose motivation.
As time passed, your hair will turn gray, and winkle will cover your skin. You will suffer from pain and disease. Your family may leave you alone and offer the elderly care for you. You will live with other elderly in an unfamiliar center and meet new friends. You will not have the energy to travel around. You will be in the Nursing Home until die.
Is the above match your common sense after you are getting old? Common sense means the natural ability for you to make a judgment and get action. (Collins English Dictionary) It comes from our experience and what we get in our daily life. Our concept of the elderly is built by our life as common sense by news, social media, and experience from others. By knowing most of the elderly in the community, an image is built, and our common sense is built.
Our common sense on the elderly comes from the news, social media, and the experience of others. From reading the newspaper, we get the information that most of the elderly are now living alone or in the nursing house. From checking social media, we build an image that we will not have time and health after age grows. From getting experience from others, we know that taking care of the elderly is not easy and time costs, most of the family cannot afford it and choose to leave them alone.
The news and social media are affecting our common sense. By reading the news every day and traveling on social media every hour, we are installed with a fixed concept on the elderly. Always having the idea on the elderly will not make up and dress up themselves and they are the weak side of society.
However, have you thought about being old does not mean the end of life. We can have a second life while we are at the stage of the elderly. With the improvement in medicine, we can keep our health for a longer time. Health care is not that important to the elderly anymore. They can still engage in sport like running if they want to. They can be beautiful and stay with friends all day. They can still have their dream and try their best to make it to be true.
In recent years, many reports and news are showing a group of people that have the concept of weak side and need health care is now trying their best to make their dream comes true, and some of them get the success. They can do everything they want! They can dress in what they like, like a normal teenager. They can have their shop, their job, and their hobby. Age is not the limit to them. With the characterize on “elderly” in our common sense, they are having their second life like teenagers.
How is it presented?
To present what I have mentioned above and breakthrough our common sense on the elderly, I created a visual essay and upload it to YouTube. In the video, I am going to use 20 images to make changes to the concept. There are three parts in total in the video. The first part will about the characterizes that most of us think of the elderly. The second part will be the mental change as the age grows. With the problems that you may concern about. And the third part will be the most important part, about the second life that you can dream for in the future. Helping the audiences to build a concept on age is not the limit to us. Everyone can act like teenagers!
Reflection
After finishing the visual essay on “What will you be when you get old?”, I find that image is really powerful. We can tell a story with a couple of images and build common sense on something. Image is powerful and can affect emotion easily. With the image in a dark colour, you may feel negative or pressure by looking at it. With the image with a bright colour, you may feel positivity and charming by looking at it.
Image is not only a powerful way to transfer emotion but also a powerful way to spread a message at the same time. For example, with an image with a woman in the middle, we can easily guess the message from the detail. What is her emotion? What is she doing? Where is she? Image is the best way for us to communicate in a fast way. As the visual essay is formed by images with sequence, the sequence of the images is of the same importance as the images. With a slightly different sequence, a totally different message is presenting. In order to get the greatest influence by watching the visual essay, the order of the images needs to be well organized.
On my way to search images, I can feel how can the news and social media change our minds with photos. Most of the time, we can see the images before the text. The first impression is then built. From my experience, our brain tends to have the memory on the picture for a longer time rather than having the memory on the words. With social media, a bunk of messages is transferred by images. Our common sense is easily affected by them.
It is a good experience for me to learn more about the influence of the picture. While we want to present something or showing some message to others, it is better for us to have it with images. Images can provide great help on presenting, having the best quality on the message transfer, and grab the attention of the audiences.
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References:
Collins English Dictionary, “Common sense definition and meaning”, Collins English Dictionary, viewed 23 November,< https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/common-sense >.
World Health Organization, 5 February 2018, “Aging and Health”, World Health Organization, viewed 23 November, < https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health >.
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