Photography has always been a catalyst for ideas. It allows me the flexibility to get outside, but also provide some context to our world. It is a glimpse of how to convey my eyes to the world. I can communicate what I wish the world to see. Blurring or freezing motion. Creating a depth-of-field image where certain portions are blurred while others are sharply in focus. While all of this is good and well, there is the traditional quote which states, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
I am troubled by this. In the past, I was attributed with writing. Writing took the back seat while I dove headfirst into photography. I never felt that it would take over my life. I fell in love with the process for a few reasons.
I couldn’t convey profound, intricate ideas into artwork with my writing. I mean -- I could, I just never had the motivation to finish a project. With photography, I could do this exact thing. I could communicate anything and everything I want with the simple click of a shutter. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks. It creates more room for subjectivity and relativity. I find an abundance of critique in photography more than I do in writing. Depending on the photographic discipline, moments are fleeting and inconsistent. They are never perfect.
With writing, ideas become conveyed on paper. While two photographers may take a similar picture, writing is not this specific. It is easy to paint a scene instead of hunting for one. I’ve read that some photographers spend years trying to capture an image. In their mind’s eye, they see the picture. They long for the process to be over, but lest it is still an arduous one. They remain a victim of circumstance. Never able to convey the image they wish to capture or in their head.
Writers, on the other hand, send a picture with a host of words. Categorizing different settings and themes through an outline and painting a scene with vocabulary. There is a direct correlation between writing and photography. Both require vision.
One can be blind and still, read. One can be deaf but still, take a picture. To absorb ideas, we must have at least some form of sense. Touch, smell, taste, sight, and hearing are all forms of physical senses. Physical senses. We know that the five senses are related to our natural world. I believe there to be more senses which we are still trying to study. What about emotional and spiritual? The need for stimulation and change? Absorption and exchange of knowledge and ideas? These are extremely important. One can lack a matter of the five physical senses, but pick up on a plan with an inner sense that can be built.
Art is our inner sense; not restricted to our natural world. It is a level of communication that requires a deep, intricate level of insight and emotional intelligence. When I say that writing and photography need vision, it is not through our physical senses. It is through our inner feelings, our internalized image.
If people lack a vocabulary, would this mean that they are more prone to something like photography? Is their visual cortex stronger than that of someone who writes? I’m not particularly sure. In the order of painting a scene, both have their pallets.
As a photographer, I enjoy being out in nature. While in retrospect as a writer, I enjoy the bits of solitude. Extrovert versus introvert. Combining these two forces gives me a sense of balance to my photographic and written approach — a storyteller through visual aid.
I am potentially looking for something external, to replace something internal. An internal process, trying to explain what has happened externally.
The yin and yang.
