A Thousand Words
To begin with the famous and perhaps clichéd maxim, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’, is often reiterated ad nauseam, for countless images of meagre sentimental value. It is only natural for us- as the trivial humans that we are- to place things in boxes, to categorise and bring seemingly inordinate array of items/ themes/ narratives into some coherent fashion. Perhaps this makes us make sense of the world. After all, in a world where things followed no course would be like a ship without a sail (not to mention counter-evolutionary – when you are being chased by a predatory cat you need to make quick decisions). I would hazard a guess to say it would be a sense of ‘meaninglessness’ that would be forever enduring, if we never categorised anything. That’s not so bad, right?
I’ll leave you to ponder that one.
This brings me if I may, onto the subject of photography. Opening this little Pandora’s Box circa 2007 (admittedly I’m a newbie to this art); I found a new way of expressing myself creatively like many other hobbyists discover. It was on holiday to South East Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam) that I found myself thinking ‘in pictures’. Strangely you see mundane moments of human interaction transform though a lens. Things that we all have: faces, hands and feet convey much more when one can take away the distractions of race, class and creed. Things that are undeniably human: assurance, love, solidarity and aloneness. It’s also things we don’t notice, things that we dismiss at a glance not taking in the ‘beauty’ of all things not only great, but also so small that it would make ant wonder.
I would very much like to ask my readers what their opinions are of the following pictures, how it makes them feel; first impressions, likes- dislikes, their reactions, thoughts and feelings. I will follow with my own feelings on them after a couple comments, there are also more on the flickr link below.
Tags: catagory, comment, General, meaning, opnion, Photography
March 20th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Just a word of caution (because I understand the whole “world through a lens syndrome”).
Sometimes you end up being so caught up in “capturing that moment” that you don’t actually get to “be” in that moment. You’ll always be the ‘observer’ as opposed to the ‘participant’.
I realised that’s what I was doing when I was taking photos of the fireworks. I was so caught up in trying to get the perfect shot that I didn’t realise that I hadn’t actually ’seen’ any of the fireworks with any of my friends.
March 22nd, 2008 at 6:15 am
You have pretty pictures.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:02 am
first image = “im gonna fall of the edge here whilst two people talk about photography”
second image = frustrated water
third image = “Is a taxi going to hit me?”