We live in such an era of technological development. Smartphones were used in common, it makes life much more convenient but also harm to people in many ways. A survey shows that most people spend 3hr and 15 minutes on their phones per day on average, the top 20% of smartphone users spend more than 6.5 hours on their phones. I check up my screen time now, at 5:12 PM, it is 3h 53m. This number surprises me because I don’t remember I spend so much time on my phone so far today. But the record tells the truth, it is how my phone mess with my sense of time. I spend 99% of my screen time on social networking and entertainment. Being honestly, I usually check up the time by checking my phone when I am studying, half of these times, I just starting using my phone during my study time. When I was using these apps I though time flies, but when I spend time on studying I think time goes slow. Before I go sleep, it is my habit to check up the phone, it was the most attracting moment to me on my phone in the whole day. When I exit the phone because feeling tired, I found out it is 2 AM. It decreases my sleep quality because I don’t have enough time to sleep. Therefore, I think smartphone makes me messed up my time as my regular daily basis of device.

From the picture that was taken in Brooklyn on September 11^th, 2001, there was a group of five young people sitting and enjoying their lunch break while the huge smoke is back of them. That was a series four attacks by the Islamic terrorist group against the US. The attacks killed 2,977 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least 10 billion in damage. In addition, there are people dying from related disease in the months and years later. The smoke in the picture shows the big strategies that happened in that moment, many people lose their health and many people lose their lives. The war is happening close to them but this group of young people just ignore the danger. They think they live in the peace, they think the war is never going to relate to them, they think they are young so they will not die. They think they have a protector because they are American, but when the country was attacked in front of their eyes, they think that is not a big deal, and still think they are safe. No one believes the strategy is going to happen to them. This is related to the composition of the picture that John Berger talks in the Ways of Seeing. The foreground is a colorful and relaxing scene shows people are talking and laughing in Brooklyn, the background is dark and vague showing the big smoke is around the sky above Manhattan. Relax and strategy are against to each other in the picture, the river in the middle of the picture is the transition, maybe people in the picture think they are safe because they are in the other side of the river.

A contemporary image is created in modern times, when we live on. The oil paintings that Berger discusses are from traditional Western art. Contemporary images that have been used to illustrate wealth are image with big houses, or people wearing gorgeous wedding dresses. The oil paintings that Berger discusses are similar to the contemporary, they just have different producing ways, represent different times. Modernized houses compare to old architectures; laughing ladies with white teeth compare to virtuous women with closing mouth. They represent the time and the society when they are created. We can see the history of the art. From the oil paintings to contemporary image is the development of the art. However, they usually have different value, an oil painting from traditional Western culture often more valuable than a contemporary. Why are antique expensive? Because they are rare, nonrenewable, and represent the meaning that painters want to tell nonverbally. Contemporary images are much valueless because they are common. A small part of contemporary images are sold in high price, but most of oil paintings from the traditional art history are sold for millions or even billion dollars. Contemporary images and oil paintings are essentially same because they are made under the eras, but they are much different because they are created under different eras.

In the episode 2 of “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger says, “to be nakedness is to be yourself, to be nude is to be seen naked by others”. In his eyes, nudity means people can see woman’s body as an unemotional object in the old Western culture. He thinks man judged women casually and women’s status is low in the European tradition. Artists explain that a nude is women’s natural way to display themselves. In the other hand, the artists themselves are strangers in their eyes because they are wearing clothes on. But no matter the era, women are still seen to have lower status than man in many countries. For instance, women who live in countries with the religion of Islam are forced to cover their bodies and faces until they marry a man, their body can only take off their clothes in front of their husband. The society limits the power of women; women have less human right than men. Same as the Western artists who draw naked women in the oil painting, they think women as objects that belong to men. From the accent time to the present, men like to see women in the nude but they judge women in the nude at the same time.

          In this image, I can see that there is an old lady sits on a wheelchair  and stays alone in a room. Besides, there are some flowers and a music player on the desk. In the picture, the old lady is smiling and raising her arm so that she can use light to make her shadow look like she is dancing. As we can see from the photo, she is really enjoying this moment. She knows that she is old. She can’t even stand up by herself. But in her mind, she believes that she can still be young again. Here, I can strongly feel that she really wants to change her situation and go back to her young age times so that she can dance again. Therefore, she uses her humor and optimistic attitude to against her life’s struggle. She likes flowers and music, desires to dance. On the other hand, she is also very creative like a child, because I never see a senior who likes to play with his or her shadow. The message from this image, I believe, is to keep optimistic in difficult situation. Don’t be afraid of being under the shadow, you know the light creates shadow. Don’t ever think your world is dark, you should know that your light is created by yourself. If you have a dream, you will never feel old because your heart is young.