The concept of "Othering"

This picture on the Wing Young Huie's blog is called Real Cowboys, Minneapolis, MN.  At first glance you focus directly on the one man and what he is wearing, a cowboy hat, belt, and shirt. However, he pairs it with black slacks and dress black shoes which is out of the norm for a 'real cowboy.'  You also notice that he is on the corner of some street with a sub place and a big billboard in the background.  If you look closer at the picture you can look and see that he is holding something in his left hand tightly which means that it is significant to him.  You also can notice that there is only one other person on the street with him leading to the thought that it may be a less busy area or early in the morning.  You can also notice that he does not have a smile on his face and is squinting even with his glasses.  The squinting can mean that he is facing the light which a photographer would do to get better lightening even in the photo, but then you notice that it is black and white.  The black and white, while obvious, can have a deeper meaning to his story.  The man's story may seem black and white to the audiences eye but to him it is a more complex story.  An example can be that he may look like a cowboy and at first glance to a town that is not crowded with people and not in the south he would a cowboy to them even though he would not be the ordinary cowboy.

Both Wing Young Huie and Margret Atwood use "othering", however Atwood uses the concept of "othering" by the different classes of women while Huie uses the concept "othering" how he photographs a person.

In The Handmaid's Tale women are separated into different classes, Marthas, Handmaids, Wives, Econowives, and Aunts.  This represents "othering" because the women are portrayed as people who have fundamentally different characteristics that makes the society of Gilead separate them into different classes.  Huie uses the concept "othering" when he photographs people because he is able to take a person and make them look like an alien in a black and white world.  This man in the photograph above is pictured as the only man on the street which makes him an alien.  He also stands out from what you could image what other looks like in the town because he is dressed in cowboy outfit aspects as well as dress pants and shoes.  The black and white effect Huie often uses in his pictures makes it seem that the people in the images are from decades ago.  This effect alienates the modern people as if they can not relate from decades ago and they can't understand a persons story just from a picture.