I really like these sites. I love seeing the photos of others. They are inspirational and funny and instructive. And while a picture can paint a thousand words, what about the words? The concept of a blog without many words is foreign to me, even though I've been playing around with Tumblr for a while.
It makes me wonder if this shift in preference is really about the attractiveness of images or if it is just laziness? It takes some effort to read and, hopefully, constructively contribute to the conversation by responding. It doesn't take much effort to look at a photo and hit the "reblog" button or the "repin it" button. I can get a lot from photos, but there is so much they can't communicate. I want the rest.
I had a good friend once who was very quiet. He didn't talk much at all, but he took beautiful photographs, and I was fortunate that he chose to share his photographs with me. I was able to learn much from and about him from those photos, but there were many times when I wished he would have been able to verbalize what he was thinking and feeling instead of making me guess or extrapolate it from a series of clues he left for me.
When I was discussing this new societal image-lust with someone, he made the point that life is all about images.I disagree. We have more than the sense of vision. We take in information from the world through hearing, touch, taste, and smell, too. Many believe that intuition is the "sixth sense" that we use to make meaning of things around us.
Language and images are related, of course. A well written book or story paints a mental picture for the reader. It's a direct connection of the minds that happens through words. Sometimes it falls short of ideal communication, but does that mean we should quit trying and move toward nothing but images?
I know, I know. There is a middle ground here, as there usually is. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. But here I am looking at a whole new world of photo blogging and image sharing and I feel like a fish out of water. I want to say, "Can't I just write what I'm seeing or thinking or feeling?" Of course I can, but as fewer and fewer people read, there will be fewer and fewer people to receive my communication in that form. Journaling is a good thing, but writing is limited unless there's someone to read it.
So, I'm learning how to swim again - with images in addition to words.
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Read more A Writer's Journey.
