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Between the Images and Words
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 7:00AM 
Another image from my 'Edges' series taken down by the sea.
Today on Burn, Jan Adamski, a 22 year-old Polish born photographer, said, "It is truly complex to use images and words to express something that goes beyond any thought, feeling or sensation." I think that is my experience of working with these seascapes; the camera 'sees' something that we can't. We intuitively know of these flows and their shapes but we don't experience or see them in this way. So the camera shows us something we know but never directly experience and probably couldn't adequately describe in words. (Well, I don't think I could...)
Composer Claude Debussey said, 'Music is the space between the notes.'
I wonder if there is a visual equivalent; a space between the image and our experience? Any ideas?
Reader Comments (6)
Music conveys audible meaning to create or recall an experience. Photos create visual meaning to create or recall an experience. The depth of experience is different for me than for someone who has never been seaside before.
For the specific context of the subject, the time-lapse adds detail that would be missing. The subject has inherent motion that is significantly relevant to the experience. As well, sound is relevant to the experience of this subject. The time lapse makes it easier to construct the recall of related sound as the image is viewed.
Such may not be the goals of a portrait.
As with all design, the answer depends on the context.
Hi,
Thanks for your thoughts; I really like the idea of visual meaning and recalled experience. Also the concept of manipulating the image to 'add detail'. For me this is not a detail that we see but one that we experience - and might not be present in a high shutter speed shot.
Great comment - very helpful - and now I'm off to take some more photos!
Steve
You may have already seen but for other readers who are not engaged in our common conversations, of significant relevance are all the pearls to be found in "Meaning Making" http://bit.ly/AA2nc
Thanks for pointing us towards such an excellent resource. I'm particularly taken by the phrase on the first page:
"With quality visualization techniques entirely new landscapes and terrains can be created. New worlds of meaning. Literally."
Absolutely....
Hello Steve, found you via Sally Lever's blog, and I'm enjoying exploring the images and other richness you have here.
This photograph is stunning, and the question you pose is interesting. I think sometimes that visual space comes back to us in memory. The writer Anne Lamott in one of her exercises encourages the student to explore memories in a visual way. To picture that scene in the playground and allow what is important to come out in one's writing. Perhaps that half-remembered figure will emerge from the background and become the most important person in your story.
Hi Tess, Welcome!
I really enjoy Sally's blog - it gives me a moment of calm in what are otherwise fairly frantic days. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy frantic! AND... I also need the calmness - and Sally is very inspiring...
Thanks for your comment on the photograph - the questions of memory (half remembered..) fascinate me. Yes, I guess that these images are about the half-remembered/half imagined spaces...?
At the weekend I was at an excellent exhibition which used visual/audio representations of Alzheimer's disease (will post on it tomorrow) and the found it very disturbing...
I will check out Anne Lamott - thanks for the reference.
All the best,
Steve