Week 6 — Photo Essay
Overview
Hello everyone! For this week’s assignment, I was tasked to use one of the brainstorming methods I explored in the Brainstorming & Ideation lesson and come up with a short narrative involving a protagonist. The protagonist could be be anything: an artifact, human, animal, etc. As I was beginning to scroll through my photos on my Camera Roll on my iPhone, I decided to choose my protagonist as my very own Chihuahua puppy named Tako! He has been the newest addition to the family right before the pandemic has hit the U.S. really strongly. And so, I thought it would be a great opportunity to make a mini storyboard from his perspectives throughout the entire time. :)
Tako. The Chosen Chihuahua.
WOOF! My name is Tako, and I was born on November 19th, 2019 in a small town called Polkton, North Carolina. I was only six weeks old as my original owners had decided to give me up for adoption and separated me away from my mom, dad, and my two siblings. :(
On New Year’s Eve of 2019, during my trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, my siblings and I were with my original owners at a senior living home as they were making visits to their beloved one. During that night, two random guys appeared within my sight and decided to choose me and took me away from everyone. From there, I met my new owner as I was being held by him for the first time and he immediately started calling me “Tako.” I was honestly scared and tired that night.
As a couple days went by, I had slowly began opening up to my new owner. He ultimately surprised me with a yummy treat! I was really content and I realized at that moment that I could trust him more and more. I haven’t felt this good in a long time. It was a nice feeling to have.
Eventually, my owner had provided me a safe space for me to call my very own home with a nice bed, warm blanket, and a cuddle buddy for me to sleep with! I started to feel like I was truly at home. I began to trust and started to love him more day by day. He was such a nice and caring man. :’)
During the midst of the pandemic that hit in March 2020, on a spontaneous weekend, my owner had taken me to meet his best friend, and I also made my very first friend! A dog like me! His name was Abel and he is a ninety pound mutt who was a lot bigger than me. I was very intimidated and scared of him at firs.! Though, he was very calm and collected. He wasn’t such a bad guy at all. I look up to him as a big brother and we had played with each other tirelessly. Good times.
As many months passed by, I had so many good experiences as my owner had actively interacted with me on a daily basis. I began to pick up his routinely patterns every day and followed him everywhere he went. It was nice to sleep with him on his enormous bed and I would always cuddle up inside his blanket. Very very cozy! And also I have gotten a lot more toys too! I could tell that my owner truly cares for me and I always get excited when I see him come home while waiting at the door.
Over the past year, I have spent so many days with my owner and I can finally say that I am glad to be a part of his family. I will always cherish the moments I have with him day by day. And there’s so much more to come by! New places to go, new experiences to feel! My adventure will continue to lead on as I walk beside him on the path to eternal happiness. Thank you for being a great dad. I will always be loyal to you and trust in wherever you choose to go as many more memories will come and go.
Love,
Tako.
Self-Reflection Time!
During the course of this assignment, I had enjoyed making a fictional narrative of my beloved dog. At first, I was not so sure how I could make a good narrative to base off my protagonist on and it took a while for me to conclude on the theme.
As I had reviewed the storyboarding process on the course material, it definitely helped a lot for me to structure my narrative in a way that could be presented in an organized fashion that my protagonist had began his journey on. I took the photos from my iPhone’s library as they had been in a chronological order and based it off by writing a personal memoir of my protagonist. From there on, I had added small comic messages on each photo resembling the events that had occurred throughout the story as I have felt what my protagonist was thinking or feeling at those times. It definitely added a lot of character to my protagonist as he does not have the ability to narrate in reality. I also have added in some elements of word-specific and duo-specific combinations to the photos to create personas of the characters.
Overall, I think that the storyboarding process truly allows a person to be creative that goes beyond expectations and does resolute to many good ideas that may come. It is a great way to benefit from this exercise and take the experiences from it!
