Breaking Rules at BYU

My focus perspective was to capture the feeling of recklessness at BYU. It all started when I was walking home and saw a group of freshmen piling leaves to jump in. Because I work in the freshmen dorms, I see "crazy" life and stupid ideas daily, so this was nothing big- every freshman loves the leaves. However, one boy asked these 2 girls, "Are we going to get in trouble for this?" That set off something in me and made me realize that maybe that's the real slogan of BYU college kids who don't drink or hard party: Are we going to get in trouble for this? I decided to try to capture the "wild side" of BYU, or what we think is out of the norm. What constitutes breaking the rules inside this Provo bubble? In the process I was drawn to restrictions as well- parking signs, caution tape, and other warnings we walk by every day. I learned that we are told NOT to do an infinite number of activities, so I think we all have that inner desire for some level of rebellion. And I caught some of that in pictures. 

Using strong color and asymmetrical balance with a lot of negative space, this picture represents authority. One orange cone can keep anyone away: I've done it. There's really bad parking where I live, and one night I placed an orange cone in a vacant parking spot before I left to the mall. When I came back, the cone was still in the spot, and I successfully saved my spot. Deceitful? Yeah, but I only did it to show a powerful lesson for this project (and to save my spot): most people will not question authority or signs or warnings and will recognize one small orange cone as a major restriction. We let these plastic objects construct our lives and these parking tickets ruin our day. There are so many rules and regulations we don't think about because our lives are constructed in and around them. Maybe some rules are meant to be broken because it gives us back our freedom and right to speak up. 

While walking home from class I heard two boys in front of me say, "Dude, what if we just took that right now?" His friend said "Don't they give tours on that?" To which the first boy responded, "We give the tours now." Ha. Real cute, boys. I turned and got a picture of the golf cart and saw the rule of thirds involved. I wonder how many of us walk by empty golf carts and have that urge to drive away. 

These picture above is the ultimate rebellion of freshmen kids in Heritage Halls. It's hard to see in the picture above, but there are 6 "Don't Walk On Me" signs all placed together. Each grass lawn has a sign staked in it (see below picture for close up). I'm sure we've all seen these signs on campus, too. However, all of our signs went missing from each building in the dorms, until we found them  all placed together in a small lot of grass near the street. Some kids must have gathered them all up, stuck them all together, and giggled all the way home. 

Grass can't talk. We all walk on it. 

I took this picture while I crossed the street- even though there were no cars around, I walked on a red hand. I found it somewhat funny that we are so controlled by these signs and colors and shapes around us. Yes, they protect our lives and have a purpose, but some pedestrians have anxiety attacks over the countdown clock and the tiny red hand. 

This last picture I took in our Comms 303 class before lecture started. We see it at movie theaters and ball games, but the classic feet on the chair is usually not encouraged or allowed in certain places. Some people do it naturally, while others think it's somewhat rude or shows a sign of possessiveness over the other chair. No rules are being broken, but the general idea of doing something different than normal BYU students is shown in our very classroom.