Blog Prompts #3 & #4

#3 “Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.”~Duane Michals.

I believe it is. Photography is a tool made by humans to convey different ideas through the clever use of lightning and framing. Much of the scene can be seen inside of the frame, but what is left outside this frame?

The interesting part of the photograph usually is this framing: no matter if it's done visually, but also historically or personally: what was behind the subject? to their side? what was outside the lenses or behind him?

There is a lot of stuff that is not said through the photograph and that part is, in my very opinion, the most exquisite one, just because it's the part where the imagination can run wildly and let all of our feelings, desires, ideas and what not reside.

#4 “If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera.” ~Lewis Hine.

Problem with words, at least for me, it's that they are intricately personal. Unless being utterly specific, when describing a story or setting it, requires quite a lot of description in order for the reader to understand what I as an author try to achieve. Not only that, there is also a big filtering between reader and writer that cannot be overlooked: whether it's the editor or the lack of the knowledge of the reader on what I am trying to say, this poses a problem.

In that situation images are noble and honest, transparent and bendable to the artist that uses them. They reflect what the artist is trying to achieve or say in a very sublime way, almost working with him in order to convey something. And sometimes, working against him again, in order to convey something.

This is why it's impossible to make a faithful adaptation from a novel to a movie. The problem lies that there are so many layers that the original written piece worked on that are being left out on the movie. And the same goes the other way around. In my personal opinion both medium do not blend well together and it takes quite the mastery of the movie makers in order to convey and be faithful to the story, and the other way around. Mastery that nowadays is becoming more scarce.

I personally consider myself a visual artist that is only passing through a lot of media, but at the very end, an artist. And this is why my personal medium is related to visual images: drawing, painting, movies, video games or photograph. Because it's impossible to cheat with images, unless you utterly and specifically want to do it.