
Today we capture the most valuable experiences with our cameras. When we have a luxurious meal, go to a beautiful place, or meet a person we love, we take a picture of those to commemorate the happiness. Bruno, the author of the photograph “You’re Welcome,” has an interest in taking photos of certain places he visited and uploading them to his social network page. The one of his works, “You’re Welcome,” displays a lonely bench in a street of central Rome. Interestingly, it does not merely display the landscape of central Rome; it conveys hidden messages through its visual elements. In this photo, the focal point and the background combine to warn us against becoming too caught up in the daily grind and losing the true happiness. 

The bench can be interpreted as losing its purpose and why this implies our fast-paced society by looking at the focal point of the photograph. The focal point of any photos refers to the main subject or message that an author intended to make. This image has a focal point on a bench, rather than on a person or a place. A question derives: although Bruno took this picture as a tourist, why would he focus his frame on a bench that could be seen everywhere else? Generally, a bench is seen as an ordinary object that provides us a place to rest. Sometimes it also functions as a rendezvous. Back in the past when there were not any technological devices, people had to decide when and where they would like to meet beforehand, and they often say, for example, ‘Meet me at the bench on the Kings Street at five o’ clock.’ If they arrived at the place early, they sat down on the bench and waited for their friend to come. For some people, they simply took a sit on the bench for a rest and read a newspaper or a book. However, how does this apply to today’s society? Everything is manageable with our smartphones, and our lives are very hectic while we are busy with our jobs. We do not have enough time to wait for somebody. We do not have enough time to take a rest in the middle of an urban street. We do not have enough time to do other things besides the heavy loads of work from the job. We are living in such a greedy society that we must always compete against the other people. In addition, without wealth, we do not earn the benefits of anything. For these reasons, wealth and impatience have become our main focuses in today’s society, therefore, bench has lost its purpose and is no longer useful and meaningful object on the street. We have lost the small happiness that we can feel from the bench. 

As the focal point clearly conveys how we are caught up in the daily grind, the blurry background of the photograph reveals the uncertainty of our lives and even our society. We can notice that the entire background is blurred in the photograph. This is very significant because the blurry effect symbolizes the path of our future. The street near to the focal point is somewhat clear, but the street far away from the focal point is so blurry that it is hard to tell whether the street is the dead end or is a four-way junction with the other streets. Likewise, we usually know how tomorrow might be. Some have to go to the work places, and some have to go to the school. No one, however, knows how a day after ten years might be. Some might be very successful in a business and suddenly become a billionaire, or some might have chosen a wrong decision and become a poor. As the street becomes blurry as it gets further, our lives also become unpredictable and uncertain as they refer to further future. In the background, there is also a person who seems to be shrink up as the person holds his or her bag tightly. Furthermore, we can see the person’s appearance only from behind, and we cannot see the person’s face. This shows how society tends to conceal ourselves from one another; we fake our emotions to hide our true minds. By looking at the person walking down the street lonely by himself or herself, we can interpret that we have to stand by our own as the society isolates human relations. 

While both focal point and background separately displays the fast-paced society that we live in today, the image as a whole also conveys the message that we need to find and preserve the small happiness within our society. The blurriness of background shows our hectic lives, and the only apparent object is the bench: everything around us is moving as fast as the society moves, however, only the bench is remaining the same as before. The bench did not become useless by itself; it has lost its purpose because we have changed. The bench is always there, but it is us who do not stay there anymore. That is why this photograph is titled “You’re Welcome.” The title has two meanings: “You’re Welcome” as a response to our thanks for always being there for us and “You’re Welcome” as giving a welcome to us to have a sit and rest. Thus, the truth is that the small happiness is always near us, but the fast-paced society has made us to ignore it. 

This photograph might be seem like a simple candid shot of central Rome. However, as we have looked at the details and the visual elements of the picture, these elements clearly demonstrate today’s fast-paced society and the loss of pleasure in our daily lives. We have learned that the photograph is encouraging us not only to strive against the fast-paced society, but also to lay back from our daily grind and find composure and calmness. Instead of only following the society, we should look around for small happiness because it is always there for us. We are welcomed to enjoy the happiness.
