
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 to remind us of the happiness we felt. 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. 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. The focal point and the background of this photo warn us against becoming too caught up in the daily grind and losing the true meaning of happiness.

By focusing on an object rather than a person, Bruno shows that the empty bench implies our fast-paced society. At first glance, the photo effortlessly takes our eyes to the bench. It is actually the only thing in focus, when every other object is blurred. Why did Bruno focus his frame on the bench? A bench provides a place to rest, read, talk, and even mediate. However, in these days, many benches have been removed in urban areas under the assumption that they take up too much of unnecessary spaces that can be used for other purposes. Our fast-paced society is focused only on how we can live in more convenient and faster world. Hence, we no longer think that the benches would be as needed as they were before. That is why Bruno puts an emphasis on the deserted bench to display that we have become too absorbed in the daily grind. Even the person in the picture ignores the existence of the bench and continues to stride away into the hectic city. We simply think our society helps us live in a better world, but in fact, we are losing little yet valuable moments of happiness that could have been found on those benches. 

Another astonishing part of this photograph is that the focal point clearly conveys how we often think nothing but our mundane daily lives, yet the blurred background brings a sense of uncertainty that we feel everyday about our future. We usually have a rough idea about how tomorrow would turn out. Some have to go to work, while others have to go to school. No one, however, knows what would happen in ten years. Some might be very successful in business and suddenly become a billionaire, while others might have made a wrong decision and become hopeless. Likewise, the street near the focal point is somewhat clear, but the street far away is so unclear that it is hard to tell whether the street is a dead end or a four-way junction with a street connected to other. Bruno cleverly uses this ambiguity to highlight his message. The further the street is, the blurrier the picture is, which can be interpreted that our lives are also unpredictable and uncertain in the future.

In the background of the photograph, there is also a person who is holding 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 signifies how we are taught keeping our genuine feelings from one another is important for survival in our society. In other words, we sometime have to fake how we feel just to conform to our social life. By looking at the person walking down the street alone, we can interpret that surviving in this society is solely on our own shoulders. 

While each element separately conveys a sense of our fast-paced society, together they remind us that we need to find and preserve the little but valuable moments of happiness within our society. The blurriness of background shows our hectic lives, while the bench is the only apparent object; everything around us is moving as fast as the society moves, but only the bench remains 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 take a sit and rest. Thus, the truth is that happiness is always near us, but the intense competition against one another has made us ignore it. 

This photograph might seem like a simple and 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 non-stop evolving society and the loss of pleasure in our daily life. We have learned that the photograph encourages us not only to strive against obstacles that we have to overcome to succeed in our life, but more importantly to take a step back from it to find composure and calmness. We should look around and appreciate the little things like daydreaming on a bench that we usually take for granted and enjoy the joyful breaks from the chaotic world. As Bruno reminds us once again, it is our responsibility to preserve the past for a better future and to avoid having regrets when it is too late. 
