Changing Lives

A person's life path is ever changing ever evolving every action or inaction, every event; decision will change things even if it's only in an insignificant barely noticeable way. The two texts, the article "like a horror movie" and the visual " the migrant mother" use different technologies and language techniques to convey the concept of changing lives.

Both texts represent two different situations that have severely changed the lives of the people in the article and the family in the photograph. They both had a stable life where they were sheltered under a warm roof, but then lost everything they owned and became homeless. "How would you feel if you lost everything you've worked for in mere seconds?" it is an unbearable thing.

Although each text uses different language features, they both depict the hurt and sufferings that the people have faced. The article uses witness's account, factual and emotive language whereas the photograph uses visual language, namely, the character's facial expressions, texture and focal point.

To start with, the photograph uses mainly visual language to present a family that is suffering from extreme poverty and it also depicts the determination of the mother to do her best to care for her children and to endure through difficult times. The different textures used in this photograph such as the woman and children's clothes that are dirty, tattered and frayed at the edges represent the social and economical status of the mother that suggests that she does not have the means to keep herself and her family clean and provided for. Isn't this image powerful in conveying her harsh situation?

Her dark eyes that are focused on something in the distance, and her eyebrows that are pushed together in a way that seems that she's trying to see a better future somewhere in the distance. She is looking for answers, not giving in to despair. Even the presence of a photographer taking a picture of the mother does not distract her attention. She has more important things to think about. " Would you be able to endure through these difficult times without giving up?

The most notable detail that indicates the sufferings that this family has had that changed their lives extensively, is the extreme amount of emotions displayed on the mother's face that is represented through the worry lines on her forehead and the wrinkles on her face. Which depicts that she went through extremely hard time by losing everything she worked for and left with only memories that remind her of what she used to have and what she used to be.

The composition of the figures in the photograph suggests the mother's importance. The mother is at the centre of the photograph, just as she is at the centre of her family. Which is clearly shown from the way her children