Seeing #1 & #2, page 42

1. First, I would attempt to describe Peter Menzel's photographic portraits as objectively as possible. Each photograph depicts family members posing beside packages or groupings of food that are being displayed in the center. Each person is making direct eye contact with the camera and is undoubtably being posed and thus aware of the picture. Then, I would proceed into telling them the facts you could not mealy assume from looking at the picture. Each family is of different race, lives in a different place and has a very unique diet. These food choices both represent the people culturally as well as economically and vary in types of food, price of food, and also amount of food present.
For example, the food of the Mendoza Family of Guatemala present in the first picture represents the family's culture very well. The fruits and vegetables displayed represent a traditional lifestyle that is very rural. From my own perspective it is much more minimal than my family's weekly diet but they seem to be just as happy. To me, food is something I put in my body just to survive. I don't really put a lot of effort into my cooking and do not hold much value to the process of consuming food. But it seems as though food to this family is not only used to maintain a healthy lifestyle as referenced in D'Aluisio's summary, but it is also a bonding mechanism. The process it must take to make the food in contrast with my diet of easy cook meals most likely plays a large effect in the family's togetherness.

2. The photographs of the Fernandez Family of the United States and the Aboubakar Family of Chad are the easiest juxtaposition to make because there is so much contrast present between the food of the two families. The Fernandez family seems to represent the American eating lifestyle. They have a bounty of processed food big enough to fill their home and everyone's stomachs to the brim. The Aboubakar family on the other hand has very little, and what they do possess does not seem to obtain a great deal of substance. What is interesting about both of them is separately the represent very well the place where the family comes from. There are many stereotypical conclusions you can draw from each culture just based of the composition of the photograph. The background of both pictures represents the country and lifestyle well. However something the two pictures have in common is the essence of family. Despite the large differences in their meals, neither family looks very unhappy. They pose together, connected to each other. And since food is generally a large connector between people in a family, neither group is lacking that connection. This is something more beautiful or touching to be observed about the to pictures, and perhaps that is a message that Menzel and D'Aluisio were trying to convey with this project.