Enigma |
Written by Pedro Meyer |
I have found that for me the best pictures are those that leave me with more questions than answers
When I do not fully understand what I am looking at, I feel more intrigued by the image. It allows me speculate, it gives me the opportunity to be creative with the possible interpretations of what the photograph is all about.
I have always felt that photographic images were multifaceted in their possible interpretations, even those of a photo-journalistic nature, which is the main reason why photography is such a poor medium to deliver specific information. How else to explain that a photo-journalistic image always requires captions in order to anchor the image to a specific interpretation of its content.
For the viewer the story telling abilities of an image are open ended, and when the story is presented well, we become intrigued by the information we are given. What am I looking at? is never a bad question to provoke in the mind of a viewer.
Pictures that are so easily decoded that the moment I look at them I've already answered the question "what I am looking at?", are usually quite uninteresting images. They are the equivalent of "one liners". Before a dialogue is established between the viewer and the creator of the image, the photograph has ceased to raise interest.
While having a conversation with a friend of mine, we were discussing what it must have been like to be aboard a nudist flight. We came to the conslusion that all those naked bodies elicited absolutely no erotic emotions in us. I was very understanding of this situation remembering a time when I had taken pictures in a nudist colony. I feel that complete exposure with nothing left to the imagination would be the equivalent to pictures that have no veil of unanswered questions. They become so explicit that one is left with no particular interest in the imagery.
We at ZoneZero, wish you the very best for the Holidays. I am leaving for a month long journey with my ten year old son, Julio. We are going fishing. Fishing, not as in fish, but as in explorations and the capture of images, hopefully with plenty of room for the imagination. We will be going to China, which has all the enigmas one can imagine, especially for the outsider. There is nothing there that is so explicit that you loose interest in the dialogue with their reality. Hopefully we will have some interesting things to report back to you next year, in the year 2006.
Pedro Meyer
As always please joins us with your comments in our forums.
http://zonezero.com/editorial/diciembre05/december.html
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