The
first thing I noticed about the Presidential Debate was the posture of the two
candidates. Governor Romney seemed extremely tense, and stood very straight,
while President Obama seemed more casual, putting all of his weight on one
foot, and seemed fairly relaxed. Romney’s piercing eyes were dead set on making
eye contact with the camera, or directly at the President. While Obama spends a
great deal of time making notes and observing whatever he holds on the podium,
Romney surprisingly appears as if he has nothing to observe.
Their
posture really spoke to me the whole time, particularly while they are on mute.
I feel that Romney intentionally stands an a more postured manner to appear as
his Republican party would expect him to; as a strong conservative leader that
is going to be a good leader for his fellow citizens. Obama’s lenient stance
seems to be more of a shared one among “the people”. Throughout this campaign,
the candidates seem more concerned with badgering each other until the last man
standing wins. Their stance alone speaks mountains to me about how this
election has turned out to appear. The constitution behind the candidates seems
to promote the original ideas of simplicity and freedom for the fellow man. I
believe if I crawled out from under a rock and saw this footage on mute, it
would appear as if two men are standing for what they believe is best, and
simply discussing the problems and solutions. Fortunately, that’s exactly what
they are doing, but it makes me question the true intentions of the opponents.
Knowing the background of this election, I can’t help but wonder if the intent
is truly what is better for the country, or which person can get more votes.
Viewing
this debate in silence means almost as much as it does with words to me, for I
truly pay attention to the actions of the candidates as equally as the words.
Documenting these moments proves true to the questioning of photography as
reality. I jump to the thought of
‘actions speaking louder than words’, as well as ‘a picture is worth thousand
words.’ As far as politics go, it
seems you can tell a great deal more from the way a person moves and acts as
opposed to what they say. This debate expresses a great deal of how the country
sees and understands these two men, at least how they are portrayed on the
television screen.
