A picture is said to be worth a thousand words and this picture is no exception to that old saying. In this photo taken a few months ago, a group of friends are gathered together at night in front of the California Dreaming Restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina. The main thing about this picture is that the people in this picture are incoming freshmen at their freshmen orientation for the University of South Carolina as the audience is able to tell by their shirts, meaning they have not known each other for too long and they are probably not from the same area considering the average college experience. So when analyzing the color, the position, and the people of this photo, one can figure out that college can help one make friends quickly in the strange transition from high school to college.

The colors in this photo represent a common bond amongst friends because they all go to the same college and are wearing clothing of either the school colors or actual school clothing with either the mascot, football team name, or the college name on it. This photo was taken even before the university had started school for the fall semester, which shows how a common bond is able to push friendship, especially since most students think of the high school to college transition as an awkward transition. Considering that that the students in this picture are probably not from the same areas as each other, the fact that all of them are almost color coordinated is kind of astonishing. The color in this photo is able to tell the audience that all of the people in this picture all go to the same university and/or they all share some sort of common bond or comradery between one another since they are relatively new friends attending the same university.

The positioning of the students in the photo is kind of symbolic because the front line of people is curved inwards towards the center of the front line of people, which causes the audience’s eye to focus on the center of the front line/half circle, which one may think is out of the ordinary to focus on the person in the middle of the front line of people considering that they are all friends, but in reality it makes the audience focus on the whole group of people instead because the sort of half circle makes the eye consider the rest of the line of people and the people behind the middle of the front line. This suggests that the group was trying to include everyone into the picture instead of it just focusing on one person because they’re all friends and they draw attention to the fact that all of them are wearing something that relates to the university as well. Also the angle in which the photographer took the picture was a little bit off kilter from the center of the whole group of people. This angle includes the lamp into the picture which introduces more light to the picture, which in turn adds more light to the faces of the people of the group that are standing in the background by the door of California Dreaming Restaurant.

When looking at the people in this photo, one can tell how almost everyone in the photo is content in the photo except the kid on the far right because everyone is basically smiling in the picture. This is telling to an audience because it signifies how the people in this photo are all content with one another even though they’ve only known each other for so long. That being said, every person’s body language also says that all of them are content with at least the person next to them, which is basically the same as what the smiles are telling the audience. Considering the body language, everyone is holding the person next to them by the shoulder and everyone is standing abreast to each other and no one really has their arms crossed. This shows kinship and openness in today’s standards. When people have their arms closed, it shows the person is trying to block themselves off from outside elements and shyness, since there isn’t a person with their arms crossed in the picture, that adds to the assumption that all of them are comfortable with one another. The same thing goes for the way they are standing abreast, everyone is trying to open themselves up in some way.

The people are also all evenly defined in the picture, meaning that no one in general is out of focus in the photograph which also shows that there is some sort of equality that is held within this friend group, which again became a reality only a short while before this photo was taken. The definition of the people is also a similar argument to the audience focusing on the middle of the front line because it is curved inward because it makes the audience think that there is some sort of equality amongst the group and no one is an “outsider” meaning the audience does not notice them in the picture. 

These friends seemed to have had a good night as they were all together mostly smiling and took a nice picture in the process; one thing that the audience can take away from this is that these people are good friends and according to the date that this picture was taken, they became friends quite quickly because the university had not started the fall semester of the year, they probably didn’t know each other as soon as they finished high school, and they were not from the same area. Through analyzing the color, the position, and the people in this picture one is able to clarify that these people are all friends and that the university that they were all attending helped make a quick transition to the current state of their friendship that is seen in the picture. 

