Photojournalism is comprised of both documentation of photos and it’s research write-ups. As part of Photojournalism, this photo series is made on the circle of human life through portraits.
A Travelogue Through The Human Life Through Portraits
Human life is a wonder
Each stage of life has its own changes in all aspects, like physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Human development is a process that continues throughout life. Moreover, the beauty of life can mean different things to different people. For some, life is beautiful. The word life can also be referred to as being alive. Each human is the art of almighty. As Mahatma Gandhi said, live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever.
Life is like a circle
We are born, we grow up, we age and then we die. As man is growing throughout his life and food provides the fuel for those changes. The major three stages of life can be divided into infancy, childhood, and adulthood. We all are familiar with the physical changes which all are happening in one’s body. But there are certain milestones based on psychology, which we should have to meet at particular stages. Whenever we adapt to those milestones at the correct time, the growth level is in the correct pathway.
Hence, if we fail to achieve the goals in any one particular stage, it means the person will face some difficulties to adapt to the life situation in the future. Through this chapter, I am presenting the changes happening in a human being in each psychological stage of his life with the help of some portraits of females.
Infancy
Typically the initial stage of life, that is from one year to three years. Many physical milestones occur during this stage as an infant. In order to meet their needs, they must completely depend on others. The proper development of both physical and emotional phases are starting from this stage. Through the cuddling, feeding, loving, and touching the infant creates healthy trusting behaviour. If parents fail to meet the needs, on the other hand, if they neglect the needs of their baby, it will affect the child’s psychological development.
They start to learn how to walk, feed and toileting. At the infant stage bonding and forming attachment to main care providers is first established. The rapid development in infancy, from rolling over to crawling and then walking, increases independence. Early infancy, there is a high dependence on the main caregivers.
Childhood
The next stage of human development in childhood, which is followed by infancy through portraits. In early childhood, the child starts to speak and step independently. Middle childhood, time for schooling. Childhood ranges from four to twelve years. In this stage, children start to explore and develop a sense of independence. Eventually, children learn to make their own decision and they discover that their actions have consequences. Children’s self-confidence should be developed at this age. Achieving a healthy level of self-motivation is an important part of this stage. Children start to figure out the roles in life and they start to act like adults.
Adolescent
During childhood, the growing processes continue in the next stage of human development, which is the adolescent stage. Along with physical development, there will be lots of psychological changes. During adolescence young men and women are primarily concerned with finding their identity and expressing who they are to the world. Puberty causes many physical changes to take place and adolescents must adapt to their changing bodies. All those changes make a boy or a girl is confused and stressed in portrait mode. The main problem of this stage is the role of confusion. They struggle with the question “Am I a child or an adult?
Adulthood
Adulthood brings on even more challenges and major decisions about career, and home life. Early adulthood is the first part of adulthood which ranges from twenty to forty. It involves few physical changes, but it’s a time of important emotional development, as young adults decide where they want to live with. And what type of work they want to work they what to do. However, once people have established their identities, they are ready to make long-term commitments to others.
Through experience, they have the capacity of flexible thinking, higher levels of and adaptability, that have been nurtured over the years. This age group typically conquers these challenges.
Middle age
Middle age is the second stage of adulthood which ranges from forty to sixty-five. Development occurs across the entire life of a person as they experience changes cognitively, physically, socially, and in personality. This is the stage in which visible signs of aging start. During middle age, the primary developmental task is one of contributing to society and helping to guide future generations. When a person makes a contribution during this period, perhaps by raising a family or working toward the betterment of society, a sense of productivity and accomplishment results. Apart from that, society moves forward and develops a feeling of stagnation and dissatisfaction.
Late adulthood
Late adulthood is the wisdom stage. Ego integrity versus desire is the psychological change of this stage. As we grow older and become senior citizens our productivity will slow down and explore life as a retired person. By the same token if we see our life as unproductive or feel that we did not accomplish our life goals, we become dissatisfied with life and develop despair, often leading to depression and hopelessness.
After all complex individual changes take place. Correspondingly processes in multiple domains of functioning like thinking capacity, physical strength, and it is time for chronic illnesses. Most of the people change the view of amassing money for the maintenance of health. Old age is the closing period of life span. This time it is important to find meaning and satisfaction in life rather than become bitter.
Life is a journey. We all are travelers. As each journey is different, unique in portraits. I believe every life has its own duty to complete and its own goal to achieve. Age is a case of mind over matter. Hence, if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. Furthermore, human development will be perfect according to the stages, only if he has the perfect circumstances to grow and overcome. But whatever circumstances come, our success is up to us only. Our master should be our-self only.
Punnia Jones, Kozhikode, Kerala, India
Copyrights:
All the photos and text in this post are copyright of Punnia Jones. Their reproduction, full or part, is forbidden without the explicit approval of the rightful owners.
