Alex Kulak

Photo Project

2/15/2020

For my Photo Project, I was tasked with finding a stranger with a look interesting enough

to take a picture of. The person I chose is a stranger, but a person I have seen before, and you

probably have too. This man is an employee at Milner Library here at ISU, so I will refer to him

in this paper as The Librarian. In this paper, I will analyze the clothing choices and what they say

about my subject.

First and foremost, the clothing suggests a very casual personality. While a librarian is

not a necessarily formal place, many librarians opt to dress in some form of business casual.

However, The Librarian is dressed very casually in a band shirt and flannel. The look also has a

very youthful look, despite the man being in what appears to be his late fifties or even early

sixties. The status is one of personal liberty. He’s in a position of security and confidence that

he’s allowed to dress as he likes.

The Gender of his look suggests a traditionally masculine look. Not just because of the

flannel shirt and jeans, but also in his pronounced and styled facial hair. He has long hair as well,

which is traditionally feminine, but is worn untied and balding, a masculine sense.

The Librarian has a look that almost suggests he works in a record shop rather than a

university library. His grungy casual look is one that is proving more and more common with

academics, who are choosing clothing with personal taste in mind over the arbitrary dress code

of their profession.
 The Librarian’s outfit, namely the shirt and flannel covering all of his torso and most of

his arms suggests a great deal of modesty, the flash of color with the band logo under the

consistent pattern of the flannel suggests a small amount of flamboyancy and a small buck

against the status quo.

The Librarian’s “alternative-rock” look of his band shirt shows a casual independence.

The calculator and pen in his flannel pocket implies a regimentation that he is prepared to do his

job, but he’ll do it looking how he wants to look.

The occasion the outfit suggests that The Librarian is dressed for comfort, dressed for a

day of sitting at his desk and working. He is dressed to be comfy and somewhat fashionable. He

wears that specific flannel because of the pocket in front for keeping his calculator and pen close

by.

The outfit suggests that while The Librarian appears to be an older man, he is inherently

youthful at heart. Despite his graying hair, he wears band shirts and flannels like a twenty-

something. With this in mind, the character I have decided to recreate him as Merlin the

Magician. The Librarian’s look, for some reason, gave me a mythical or medieval vibe. I think it

was the black stripe in his otherwise gray goatee. It makes him look like a wizard in the coolest

way. Therefore, I will be redesigning his look for the quintessential wizard Merlin.