Words are dead

[Don Denton]

From Fortune magazine via A Photo Editor:

Pictures are no longer precious; there are just too many of them. Once collected and preserved as art, or to document memories, they are now emerging as a new language, one that promises to be both more universally understood and accessible to anyone. Witness the rise of a new visual vocabulary. Photos, along with emojis, video snippets, GIFS, and other imagery, are replacing written language for many of the things we once relied on words to express.

http://fortune.com/2014/06/04/future-of-the-image/

[Warren Toda]

Yawn.

This might have been news 100 years ago. Certainly cameras are more ubiquitous today than ever before, especially surveillance cameras. But methinks someone just needed something to quickly write about or someone just learned to use their cellphone camera.

In the spring of 2013, two digital photos became an Internet sensation.

Yawn. I remember when a Toronto paper did a similar thing in 2006 by comparing crowd photos from concerts. Yes, that was before the iPhone even existed.

The Internet needs "best before" dates on information.


I think many people snap cellphone pix at an event because everyone else is doing it not because they feel it's important to take a photo. Such pictures are not about the event but rather about the person taking the picture. Cellphone use is now a social activity that, ironically, is unsocial.

...I have taken 500 photos in the past month... daily snapshot of my dog... family members cooking together ... photos of my notes... of business cards, the tag to a dress I might buy, the milk I need to pick up from the store. And a hastily snapped “selfie,” ...

Watching teenagers, I find that many take pictures of themselves, or send meaningless text messages to friends, when they're bored. I guess this applies to adults as well.

Rather than rehash old news, better stories might be how cellphones (and cellphone cameras) can be used to teach a new language to immigrants, how cellphones are used to avoid personal contact and personal involvement, how cellphones are used to avoid phone calls, how cellphone use varies inversely with one's wealth, how visual literacy can improve one's word literacy, why an increase in photography means an increase in the printed word, ...

[Ken Gigliotti]

It is all beyond words , an elevated place .It is somewhere higher than words because  it is objective and subjective at the same time . The photograph also reflects the persons viewpoint as an  individual .

Individual in every sense of the word. My instructor at Ryerson would say your photograph is your commitment to that moment .

We are all different and choose with our own eyes and sensibilities based on our  life experience , the moment . The photographer's says that this is important , that they are important.

Even if we put our tripod in the same spot as the greatest photographer who ever lived , the picture will be different. That is what makes photography great , it verifies that we are all great and different.  Finally a camera that just takes pictures of what we see .

[Warren Toda]

Finally a camera that just takes pictures of what we see.

But is that a good or bad thing?

Sometimes a picture is not about what we see but rather what we feel.