At the age of 18, I spent the summer in the African country of Namibia, hiking through the sand dunes and exploring a world full of poverty and desperation. For a week of my travels, we spent the days hiking Fish river canyon a beautiful and tiring adventure. Aside from the natural beauty we came across, I will always remember the one piece of advice our guide gave to us at the start of our hike. He told my group that there was no need to bring a camera, as the beauty that we could come across would tell its own story and that a still image would not do it justice. At the time, I thought that the guide was completely crazy; as I could not understand why taking pictures would dampen nature’s beauty. Upon arriving back to England, I sat down with my parents to share my pictures. I remember opening up the picture booklet and explaining to my parents the beauty of each picture, only to be frustrated that I could not get across what I had seen. The guide was right, what I had seen could not be replicated by a picture and would never give justice to the beauty of the canyon. This story was brought to the front of my memory today in class while we were discussion the importance of the picture taken by the Italian photographer in the story The Missing. A picture can tell a story, yet without actually being there, a picture can let the imagination run loose on the true meaning of the picture. After hearing the discussion in class today, it led me to wonder how many images of war may be misunderstood and analyzed in the wrong manner due to the lack of intelligence used when understanding the images. When glancing at a picture of war and seeing men with there heads down and marching behind one another, the first thought would be that these men are fed up and ready to come home. The truth of the picture may be however that these men are playing a game of heads down thumbs up and are all thoroughly enjoying there time at war. In many cases, a picture can tell a story, but as Dr. Berger mentioned in class, why do we not as intelligent students ask complex questions about the pictures to help us gain a stronger understand about the truth of the image. This role of asking complex questions can also be used in today’s society when skimming through pictures posted on the friend database Facebook or Myspace. Confusion, jealously, anger, and depression can all occur from over analyzing a picture posted on Facebook regarding an encounter that happened the night before. A close friend may see an image of her best friend out to dinner the night before with her old boyfriend. This image could anger the friend yet in truth the best friend may be out to help the friendship between the two. A picture is not just a still image but also a story, have you ever been caught out with a misunderstanding of a picture?
4 comments:
It's always been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and maybe it really is. Once a picture is analyzed, it would probably truly take a thousand words to figure out what the picture means. I like how you tell us the story about your picture "mishaps". I have the same feeling you do; I went to Eurpoe for my senior trip, and when I came home to share the pictures, I felt the same way you did about losing the beauty of what you really saw. No one but the picture taker knows what is really know on, and even then, we don't always know the real truth, as we could see in the story we read. We, as intelligent humans, must analyze and ask questions...asking questions wil only make us more intelligent.
Gosh this post hit me so hard! I honestly don't think there are ever the right words to express the beauty of what was in front of a camera lens. I was in Hawaii for a biological field study a few years ago. I know that Hawaii is a very sought after touristy place but being there for school I had to opportunity to go places and see things most people don't get to. I came home with about two thousand pictures. I try to explain to my family and friends the awesomeness of these things i've seen, and I can' just tell by the look on their faces they are thinking "Yeah that's nice, pretty picture, would you shut up and move on to the next one?" It is truely heartbreaking to me. Not because they don't get it, but because there are so many truely beautiful photographs that simply take my breathe away, and I know that I will most likely never see the real thing or appreciate it's real beauty.
Jack this post hit so close to home for me. While I've probably never been anywhere as beautiful as Africa, I have come home and experienced the disappointment of not being able to convey how beautiful the landscape was or how much fun we were having. Pictures are just tiny moments of our life that we attempt to immortalize. The trouble is, as we have learned in O'Brien, that only our memories are immortal. The picture is fleeting. It is ambiguous; anyone is free to interpret in any number of ways. This post reminds me to truly analyze the next photo I experience rather than make rash assumptions.
Jack, what a great post -- thanks! and thanks to all for this great discussion...I, too, am concerned with questions of representation, perspective, the integrity of an image or a story.
An essay that I find really speaks to the kinds of issues this post and ensuing discussion bring up is called "The Loss of the Creature" by Walker Percy. And another is "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger (no relation). Edward Said's essay "States" does amazing thing with images and interpretation, too. If anyone ever wants copies of these, let me know and I'll be happy to hand them off to you if you can't find electronic copies :)
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