The Photographic Interview

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about communication, the transmission of ideas, and how photography is as important a language to me as the English one I write and speak. Often I see a photograph and can almost immediately realize and understand what I suspect the photographer was thinking and feeling about the situation but cannot translate it into words without a thesaurus and a great deal of time. Perhaps my English skills are deficient, or I simply lack the proper depth and breadth of vocabulary to describe what I'm seeing. Language and words fascinate me, but they pale in comparison to my appreciation of and ability to communicate photographically. It’s simply a matter of differing proficiencies. I struggle to translate the same sort of instantaneous comprehension I have of the photograph to the written word.

I was looking at Polly Chandler's work recently (pollychandler.com) and came across an interview with her where the questions are posed in word form and the responses are only pictures. It is a wonderfully synesthetic idea, and is an easy way to begin to think about the intersections of the written and visual languages.

http://scenemissingmagazine.com/index.php/archives/144

posted by Megan Bigelow @ 11:29 AM