Blog Post #4: The Walden Games

For this blog post, I searched through my personal collection of images and stumbled upon this photo taken from my old summer camp. Every summer, we had a camp-wide competition called Walden Games. The camp was divided into four teams: Holland, Great Britain, Japan, and Greece. For two days, the entire camp wore only yellow, red, green, or blue and competed in various challenges in order to be the ultimate winner of the games.

This image was taken at what we call the "break" of the games. The campers are woken up late at night, and taken to a big field where the opening ceremonies begin. The photo has a "W" which represents Walden, the olympic rings, and the number 31 commemorating the 31st anniversary of the games. The break's purpose is to get all of camp pumped up for the next two days. I think this image represents intensity and strength, two qualities that must be present during the games. Walden wants to promote a competitive, spirited, and high energy environment where every camper feels part of a team and has a desire to succeed and put their physical abilities to the test.

The person in the photograph is one of the team captains and is posing before the fire display with his arms up in the air. His stance looks like a sacrifice, as if he is giving himself over to the games entirely. The powerfulness of this image is the fact that it wasn't staged or constructed in any way. Fire represents power and intensity and definitely set the scene for the games to come. I can see this image being very effective on the camps website or brochure in terms of advertising for the camp. It would show off one of Camp Walden's most intense, fun, competitive and enthusiastic events of the summer.