The seemingly unwritten rules that society follows.

The following images will show scenes of everyday items, which you may or may not have considered before. They will show how seemingly ordinary everyday items, and areas, that we come across, have unwritten rules, or instructions, that society appear to be governed by even when there is no-one of authority around to enforce those rules.

Parking space

A line of garages indicate that this is probably a housing area, and since they are all uniform in build, design and colour, they have probably been constructed by the same person or organisation. The tracks in the snow show that they have been used for the purpose that they were built, which is to store a car/private vehicle. A garage can be used for many purposes, but the mere fact that a building is considered, or termed, a garage tends to convey the instruction to people that they should store their car in it; this is an unvoiced instruction that society seems to conform by.

Delineation of areas.

This photo shows how society is regulated by the rules of boundaries, even if there is no-one around to enforce them. A lone person walks on the pavement which is the designated area for a pedestrian, whilst the cars are parked at the side of the road which is the area that is likewise designated for vehicles. The boundary walls to the houses, lining either side of the road, can also be seen to be stretching as far as the eye can see.

What can we learn

A weird-angled shot, and a motorist decided to speed up in the slush when seeing me close to the road trying to get this, so I got a soaking, and was not very amused. But I wanted this photograph because it says a lot about society. The raised sections on either side of the road, we know as pavements, and they are primarily for pedestrians; the road is for vehicles; and the two remain separate. The fence indicates an area which is out of bounds to the general public, and is only accessible to those that have permission to be there. The street lights indicate that the area is made safe for society at night. The sign shows a person where they are in the area. The markings on the road, or roads, since there are two of them, allow for motorists to know when they should stop, and which side of the road they should be on; and the fact that there is a sewage system is evident by the drain in the road. The houses indicate that there is a community in close proximity, and all the houses are modern in style.

The road disappearing into the horizon

I just like this photo, which is why I put it in, even though it still informs us that the large slushy area is used by vehicles due to the tracks, thereby indicating that the road/area has a set function in society, even if there are no vehicles on it at any particular point in time it is still considered to be there for a specific reason.

Footsteps in the snow

This is an interesting sociological shot; the footsteps are constant in that they follow a direct route, but the path and grass are both hidden by snow. This indicates that society has been conditioned to walk on a pavement even if that pavement is hidden by snow and therefore indistinguishable from the grassy area around it. If society knows where the pavement is, they will still use it, even if they cannot see it; this is sort of amazing, and could only show up on a photo that has a snow base to it because the footprints can be seen to leave a trail of where the pedestrians chose to walk even though they were not instructed to walk along the snow-buried pathway, and could just as easily have walked on the snow covered grass areas.

Footsteps in the snow (opposite direction)

This is not such a good shot as the previous one as it shows pitted snow which could be regarded as footprints, showing that the camera can 'lie' even when there is no manipulation of the photo present.