A single picture can not tell a story - poll

[FrankS]

Silly argument (I'm guilty) over semantics: tells vs invokes.

 

[gns]

A single photo does not tell a story, it invokes one.

Whether it is Barthes' idea of the "punctum" or the concept of the provocative or charged image, if the image triggers something in us, we will fill in the story line details from our own experiences.

Joe

And that's an important difference because to tell something, is to transfer/communicate something that already exists (the story). As opposed to triggering a memory or imagination.

I'm not so interested in my own imagination. I'm interested in learning something about/from the author/photographer/creator.

Again, it's the difference between imagining a sailor chasing a whale and reading Moby Dick.

 

[FrankS]

There is still room for personal interpretation by the reader of a novel, granted not as much as is required by the viewer of a photograph. But its a matter of degree, not a different situation completely, IMO. The reader of a haiku poem for instance needs to add more to the information/story.

 

[gns]

I'm not saying that stories/novels/whatever don't also evoke something in the reader or trigger the imagination of the reader. I'm also not saying that a photo doesn't communicate. I'm just saying that whatever the photo communicates/transfers, it isn't a story (a narrative).

Photos do not sing songs just because someone is prompted by a photo to imagine a song in his head.

I think an oft-repeated fallacy in these threads has been something like this...
Novels evoke something (or require participation) on the part of the reader. Novels also tell stories.
Photos evoke something (or require participation) from the viewer. Therefore, photos must tell stories.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I'm not saying that stories/novels/whatever don't also evoke something in the reader or trigger the imagination of the reader. I'm also not saying that a photo doesn't communicate. I'm just saying that whatever the photo communicates/transfers, it isn't a story (a narrative).

Photos do not sing songs just because someone is prompted by a photo to imagine a song in his head.

I think an oft-repeated fallacy in these threads has been something like this...
Novels evoke something (or require participation) on the part of the reader. Novels also tell stories.
Photos evoke something (or require participation) from the viewer. Therefore, photos must tell stories.

Totally agree...

 

[Addy101]

Amazing how people think for others. No, it isn't that novels evoke something similar on the part of the reader that I think a picture tells a story - I don't read novels to begin with!

Maybe your definition of a story is a different one from mine, that might be the problem.

 

[gns]

Amazing how people think for others. No, it isn't that novels evoke something similar on the part of the reader that I think a picture tells a story - I don't read novels to begin with!

Maybe your definition of a story is a different one from mine, that might be the problem.

I'm not sure why you say, "Thinking for others".