Arpapornnopparat 1

Arpapornnopparat Yanumad
ESL 33B
Dr. Karen Carlisi
October 22, 2015
My future career
Section 1: Literacy Narrative
When I was a kid, I used to think that being a vet was a perfect job for me. After I studied
deeper about this career, I found out that only love and passion for pets were not enough to be a
vet. Because of that, I changed my mind and focused on something that I was good at: Math and
Physics. In my country, if you are good at math and physics, it is clear that you are born to be an
engineer. Even though my father recommended that being a teacher would be a better choice for
women, I chose to believe my culture norm. Despite this background, I finally realized that
designing and taking pictures were something that I had been longing for.
I got my first camera when I was in the second year of the university. I always took it
with me as if it was a part of my body. Whenever I had free time, I would go out, take pictures
and hang around my university. I believe, because of my passion for photography, my skill went
from zero to five out of ten in a very short time. I started to volunteer to take pictures in my
faculty. Many of my friends also asked me to be their photographer on their graduation days. As
I kept practicing, I was even more into photography. However, instead of a profession, people in
my country have a tendency to judge all the art careers as a hobby, such as singing a song,
drawing a cartoon and taking a picture. Because of this influence, careers in the visual art were
not fulfilled my future including photography.

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After I continued taking a picture as a hobby, there were more events that I was lucky
enough to participate in. I have met many photographers and had chances to talk to some of
them. I learned more techniques and many useful tips to improve my skills from them. From my
perspective, those photographers are freely expressing their visions and sharing them to public.
They show others the ways they see things. Some of them create their personalities or signatures
without any label. This is the impressive side of photography. Moreover, a story or an insight
that artists hide behind each pictures are irresistible. When I look at pictures in a gallery, my
imagination might create one story which might be different from the artists stories. After I read
the descriptions that were placed next to the pictures, I got impressed and touch many times. This
sparked off the idea that everyone has different perspective and different point of view; even
though, we are looking at the same thing. Photography is beyond fascinating to me. I could not
resist it. My passion for photography leaded me to change my standpoint and started to think
about turning my hobby into my future career. I cannot wait until the day I can expose my
ideas and send messages to others.
Being a good talented photographer might not be enough to succeed in this career. To be
able to impressively express ideas in words might be another need to make photos more visible
and powerful. As I have mentioned before, everyone is different so it is an artists job to walk
his/her audiences into his/her path. Having an ability to write a precise, indirect and mindblowing message is a skill that is going to make this fine art tremendous and persuasive. I believe
there are tons of professionals in this profession but not so many are able to write well. If I can
improve this ability, it will be more likely to be successful as a photographer.

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Section 2: Description of Photographys Discourse Community

Working in an art field is all about expressing and presenting ones idea to public in a
variety of ways for instance, words, pictures, motions, movements and emotions. In the book
Genre Analysis by John M. Swales, there are many concepts and definitions of discourse
community. He pointed out In all these cases, although A,B and C may never interact, they all
have lines of communication back to base, and presumably acquired discourse community
membership as a key element in their initial training (25). In order to understand more about
working in the art field , especially working in America, I realized that nothing will be better
than asking a professional in the industry.
Mr. Arut, a lead animator in Nickelodeon who I call him P North, has been working in
an art industry for more than 5 years and he also had an experience working in Thailand before.
P North precisely gave me more information about how to prepare to be apart of my discourse
community and how to work in an American company. Creating an art portfolio is significant as
if it is the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. In order to accomplish this puzzle, every artist need to
present their works profoundly. Only out-standing portfolio is not enough, having connections
and good opportunities to show the artworks to other people are musts in this industry. P North
highly recommended one useful online portfolio names Linkedin which has already built a
huge networking in many professions including art professions. Since having connections is very
important in every art field, this website also provided an opportunity to present artworks, build
connection and public artists works, which is very convenient for companies and customers to
contact the artists directly.
According to P North, there is one dramatically different attitude between Thai culture
and American culture in a workplace that I should be aware of. Unlike Thai, American are

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willing to hear arguments and different ideas from others in order to produce flawless results.
Moreover, having different background knowledge is another example that he pointed out about
the effect of culture differences. As an animator, understanding American joke is very
challenging Mr. Arut said. It doesnt make any sense sometimes, he added.
Indeed, animators are required to have a a technical skills in a 3D program but they are
required an ability to communicate well, which means they need to have a high level of speaking
and listening skills due to the fact that they have to express emotions and movements of each
character in each scene.
Being an animator is not only required creativity and an ability to think differently ,but
working under time pressure is required compromising, time managing.

Section 3: Reflection
Many people might not see much connection between an animator and a photographer,
but I found some similarity between the new knowledge that I have learned from P North and
my future career, photography. To express ideas, animators need a high level of acting skills to
make their audiences understand the characters and the emotions while photographers need
literacy skills to make the audience understand their purposes or messages. I think I have to learn
more how to write and improve my writing skill.
Writing skill is an ability that many photographers turn their back to because they believe
that pictures are visible enough to express their ideas. In the article Moments Beneath The
Threshold of Perception., Lois proudly stated Photographys ability to be simultaneously a
document and an expression of the imagination makes it an extraordinary medium. With no
grammatical rules to guide the viewers cognitive path, photography and all visual arts can, and

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should, continually offer new ways of seeing. Indeed, photography provides a new perspective
but as I mentioned earlier, people are different. There is no such way to make people understand
in the same direction without any guideline. I believe that precisely mind blowing words is going
to make the artwork more powerful and richer than only a picture itself.
Dealing with culture differences in a daily life is already challenging but I believe that the
impact of culture differences in the workplace will be more chaotic. When P North was talking
about the beginning of his career in American companies, I suddenly saw myself in class in the
beginning of this semester. I was afraid to look stupid so I stayed quiet; even though I wanted to
answer questions or express my opinions. Now I understand more about American culture. Even
though my culture is very different, as a professional, I will be ready to express myself more.
I need to learn more about American culture. Since I came from Asia, I hardly have any
knowledge about American in every field, for instance, cartoons, musics, movies, tv shows,
American history or laws. I should build my general knowledge as much as I can.
According to my discourse community, I realized that portfolio is one things I really have
to prepare in order to transfer or to get ready for a job. One thing I have to remind myself is
Quality is more important than Quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.-Steve Jobs.
Compromising and time management are very useful skills which I believe that I really
need to improve, not only for my future career but in my whole life. Indeed, everyone has an
ability to perform impeccably if they have enough time for everything. Working under timepressure cause low productivity, which definitely affect everything in my entire life.

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Works cited
Tantasirin, Arut. "Explanation and Description of Discourse Community." Video Call interview.
7 Oct. 2015.
Greenfield, Lois. "Moments Beneath The Threshold Of Perception." World Literature Today
87.2
(2013): 38-43. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
Swales, John M. "The Concept of Discourse Community." Genre Analysis: English in Academic
and Research Settings. Cambridge [England: Cambridge UP, 1990. 24-25. Print.