1000 Words

The old phrase said a picture is worth a thousand words. A digital photo, by my calculation, is worth between 3 and 17 words. Digital photography has allowed for a glut of picture taking, but the pictures are entirely disposable. It costs nothing to take them and nothing to throw them away. With film, every picture you take is one less picture you can take in the future. You make each one count. The limited chances increase every photo’s value, so you will put more effort into each photo. The additional effort increases that value further. With a potentially infinite supply of digital photos to be taken or tossed, there is no need to put extra effort into each one.

Like different reproductive strategies in different species, with digital photography you can take a ton of pictures with minimal effort and hope some turn out, or you can put a lot of effort into traditional film photography in order to ensure that some will turn out as you like them. The hybrid approach is to increase a digital photo’s value. This requires the extra effort, taking the extra time, and trying to create something using a medium that encourages quantity over quality. The problem is the disposability of the digital picture appeals to our lazy side, and it seems that much more of a bore to take your time with a digital camera when you could take thirty pictures in a few seconds and hope you got at least one good shot.

It is early evening and the sun has finally appeared below the dark clouds that have hung over town since last night. The puddles on the road outside of the house where I live will not dry up before it sets. The sun is low enough in the sky to cast a golden light, particular to evenings after it rains, that throws the shadows into a sharp contrast with the glow on everything the light touches.

The immediate reaction is to reach for my camera. It is a beautiful moment, and if I can just capture it, I can take this with me. If I can preserve it in a picture, the moment does not end. It never works. The magnitude of a moment is impossible to capture. All you get is an image, a piece of it, cut out from the whole. The best I can end up with is a beautiful picture, which is something great in itself, but great for its beauty as a picture, not for the awesomeness of that moment. The act of creating a picture is not to capture a moment that is impossible to capture, but through the expense of your thought and effort, to add your vision of a piece of that moment. More often than not, I end up with pictures that are flat. But if I keep adding the effort into the mix, I may end up with something of value.

This evening, however, I choose not to take out my camera. To put a lens between myself and the light on the walls, trees, and paths outside of my window, removes me from that moment. I cannot take that with me, and I have no desire to pull myself away from it. The camera stays in its case, and the moment passes.

These here are some other pictures I have taken, trying each time to put in at least a little effort, so hopefully they are worth at least a handful of words, though certainly not a thousand. From the top they are: Vitengeni, Vitengeni again, and the Indian Ocean.