Thoughts on a thousand words

“Deco Tie,” photograph by Ron George

I asked the question after photography class the other night as Mary and I debriefed at a favorite tapas bar: “Pictures may be worth a thousand words – but what are they?”

I’ve been a professional writer/journalist most of my adult life. I’ve assumed all these years that nothing pictorial stands on its own without at least a few words of explanation – from news photographs and feature illustrations by talented photographers and artists to mug-shot IDs of the famous and infamous. Lately, though, I’ve pondered the idea of photography that stands alone. What does it tell me? What did the photographer intend? Is there any convergence at all between those perspectives?

I’ve concluded, perhaps prematurely, that it’s a both/and solution, because our minds are typically both/and structures: Our “right brain” responds to the visual data, perhaps becoming aware of its subtleties but at least becoming aware; meanwhile, our chatty “left brain” starts narrating, in my case by asking questions, not so much of the photographer but of the image itself. Maybe it’s just having been educated and trained as a journalist, but the questions are basic in that field: Who, what, where, when, how and why?

There has been a kind of rhetorical debate on this and similar topics for centuries. Leonardo da Vinci is said to have observed that a poet would be overcome by sleep and hunger before describing with words what a painter depicts in an instant. Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have quipped that a good sketch is better than a long speech. Popular parlance among a wide variety of communicators, from news editors to ad execs and PR operatives, boils it down to, “Don’t tell me, show me.”

“A Feather in Her Hat,” photograph by Mary Sherwood

Well, yeah, but just showing me a picture leaves too much unsaid to an inquiring mind. In my view, everything visual requires all of our minds to comprehend – and even then, our knowledge is only partial. That’s why it’s a real treat to walk with the artist through her work: The work itself may be beautiful, but the story fills in the blanks.

So, let’s hear it.

Mary and I are preparing to show our photography in a modest exhibit by a class of amateurs who have had at least three months of instruction from a professional photographer at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. This how-to course taught by Jeff Janko also touches upon theoretical aspects such as content and composition. Jeff also walked us through a quick history of photography, perspective that provoked in me great sighs of relief that things have gotten relatively simple since the good old days of the relatively recent past.

Fundamental to all of it is how to gather light with proper settings of aperture, shutter speed and that mysterious abbreviation, ISO, which we used to call “ASA” when we were loading film into our cameras and developing it in darkrooms. (It’s a setting for light sensitivity the standards for which were set by the International Organization for Standardization; and no, you really didn’t need to know that.)

The Class: (front row, L-R) Melissa Windle, Sandra Garcia and Leticia De la Garza, (middle row, L-R) Rosa Lazaro, Dora Alaniz, Nicole Serrao and Sean McGuire and (back row, L-R) Yours Truly, Robert White. John White and Mary, aka Dr. Sweetie Pie.

Why go to all that trouble? After all, everyone with a cell phone carries a relatively sophisticated camera with automatic settings that make photography easy and satisfying. I’ve seen great photography made with cell phones. Most of us have. (The local state university sponsors an annual exhibit of cell-phone photography, most of which is better than any photography I ever made with film cameras.) Jeff believes that, someday, the 35mm single-lens reflex cameras we tote around for class will be obsolete. They will look like our cell phones, he says, and be just as effective as our Canons and Nikons. Until then, though, Jeff wants us to learn how to control our cameras and not rely on automatic settings to do serious work that is pleasing to the eye.

Then there’s the photo-editing software: Digital photography enables us to make good photographs even better without a heavily equipped darkroom. I would say, and perhaps Jeff would say it, too, that digital photography puts art photography within reach of anyone willing to learn the technology.

The Teacher: Jeff Janko; studio photograph by Ron George

I learned “wet lab” photography in college while majoring in Journalism. Mary majored in Photojournalism at the University of Texas. That was a while ago, and though we’ve owned digital cameras over our past 40 years together, neither of us is content with “aim and shoot” automation – but we’re not inclined to go retro by shooting and developing film, let alone endure the rigors of printing photographs in a dark room. Since we retired – I in 2015, Mary two years later – we’ve been stumbling our way toward proficiency as digital photographers. We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way.

We’re not alone. Jeff’s classes are filled with people like us, mostly mature adults taking on something new or increasing competence and confidence as continuing education. We enjoy each others’ company, we enjoy each others’ work – and we get to produce photographs that Jeff ensures will go public.

So, here’s the pitch: Our class exhibit opens with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, May 4, and continues through May 25 at the Del Mar College Center for Economic Development, 3209 S. Staples Street.

Enjoy the art. Enjoy the fellowship. Meet folks who have worked hard to do well, and by all means interrogate what you see in these 11×14 frames but also let them seep into your imagination. And if you really like one of them, buy it! It’s not a sale, though, it’s a free exhibit and you’ve got almost a month to get there if you can’t make the opening.

And, while you’re at it, ponder The Mystery of a Thousand Words. It’s more than an advertising slogan, though it seems to have started out that way. (Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it.)

Above all, though, enjoy the show!