During their first year of college, students at Mount Angel Seminary take Writing in the Humanities. During the last two weeks, the students in this year's class have been working on an essay in which they respond to a visual image.
In March of 1971, the music group Bread had a single hit entitled "If." The song's most famous line was "If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you." This song was the very first thing that came to my mind as we started our new lesson in Writing in the Humanities.
In the Eyes of a Queen
Sister Hilda Kleiman began our lesson by looking at various techniques on how to respond to an image. These techniques help bring to light different variations on how one might approach, better understand, and come to appreciate various images. After reviewing these techniques, Sister Hilda broke the class into groups and gave each of us an image to study.
With the help of these techniques, I was able to see many things in the image I got of the young Queen Elizabeth. (Editor's Note: click here to see a short piece about the Queen's coronation and the photo that is the subject of Frank's writing).