Is One Picture Worth a Thousand Words?
It’s an old adage but is it right? It depends upon your point of view.
Jackdaw. Shoreham UK. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2012
A good few years ago, maybe ten, I made a piece of work for a photography festival in the seaside town where I lived called The Telling of Tall Tales.
I have long been interested in stories and pictures, how the two connect and support each other. No surprises there looking around this website.
I had postcards printed of five photographs from my archive. I left small piles of them as gifts in various places around the city; in cafes, the library, hotel receptions and museums. Anywhere that would have them.
On the back of each one was a direction to visit the website I had set up with the URL of the same name. Here you could submit your own story inspired by the picture you had found.
It was not a very successful endeavour.
One kind soul wrote a story and shared it on the website. Other than that, nothing at all.
Yet the collaboration of words and pictures, for me at least, persists. I’m fascinated by how given the time to think freely, we can interpret an image in any way we care to. Here’s a picture. You write a story.
Who Said it First?
Quote Investigator shares an extensive post investigating the answer. The idea has been floating around the cultural hemisphere of art and writing for two hundred years (at least), evolving into the adage we know now. QI's theory is that the closest modern use is by US newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane in 1911 in a speech he made discussing the effectiveness of photographs.
“If I show you a picture of a pebble half an inch high on a magazine page and ask you how high it is, you cannot tell,” he said. “But if I put a housefly beside it twice as large as the pebble, you say it is a grain of sand. If I take out the fly and put a man on horseback on top of the pebble you say it is a boulder.
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Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words.”
Brisbane and, I imagine, many newspaper editors after him knew the value of a great photograph. A great photograph can capture the essence of human mood, emotion and a moment in time through the skill and vision of the photographer. That one flat, two-dimensional image can visually transcend a column or two of words. There is a democracy to photographs. Or so the argument goes.
Try to Describe Your Holiday in Words
You know this. You sit down with your friends, who ask politely how your holiday went. You excitedly tell them all the incredible things that happened. The pyramids in Mexico, the storm that took you out to sea on your surfboard, the queue to see the Mona Lisa, the terrible sunburn your boyfriend got. And more. In the end, seeing the glazed expressions of your friends, you pull out your phone and say:
Wait. I'll show you some pictures.
Or a video.
Because if Instagram is to be believed, One Video is Worth a Thousand Photographs. Let us take a silent moment to mourn the loss of the still photograph as the video age takes over.
Where was I…
The combination of pictures, videos and your stories can elevate that interaction to a different level. Not everyone is an amazing storyteller. Some of us need a little help.
Are Pictures Better than Words?
It depends on your point of view. Whether you value pictures over words or words over pictures. And all the variations in between.
If you find a family photo album stuck in a box, one you have never seen before, with pictures of people you have never seen before, you might be frustrated by the lack of context. You might want to know who all the people are, where they are and what they are all doing. You can make a guess, ask around but there’s no telling what anyone will know.
The pictures on your phone can give you data on date, time and place. In analogue times, this information had to be recorded by hand by a person that thought it might matter. My Granny’s notes on the back of an old collodian photograph she gave me many years ago, inspired me to trace a family story of a voyage from the UK to Australia in the 1800s.
For others, any ambiguity is delightful, a mystery to never be solved. Or a place for a fictional story to evolve connecting memories, family stories and imagination. I find this a fascinating place to be, a guessing game where there are no true answers. This is where a fictional story exists.
Does Any of This Matter?
Not really, unless it really does.
Let's look at it another way.
A picture or diagram or photograph can cross the limits of language. For example, you bought that cupboard in Ikea the other day and there it sits in its box, several wooden boards and a plastic bag full of screws, bolts, wooden dowels and an Allen key or two.
You look for the assembly instructions. A few sheets of paper depicting large diagrams with a list of all the pieces you will need to put together your desired cupboard.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Those Ikea diagrams aren't easy to follow. Yet, imagine if the assembly instructions were in written form. I can guarantee you'd be tearing your hair out after about forty-five minutes.
And then there are maps. How many times have you been asked directions by a tourist or someone new to the area? Or maybe you need directions to a place you've never been before.
The person you ask explains in great detail how to get to your requested destination. They tell you, helpfully, where to go: west along Queen Street, then make a right up 13th. Head south for 200 metres. Then take a left up 14th-150 east and it's up there on your right. You can’t miss it.
Only a short way in, I'm usually lost. I know, I know. Google maps. Well, sometimes the map is outdated. The swimming pool that used to be there is now a block of flats, that sort of thing. Or maybe I've forgotten my phone. It happens. Even if I have my phone, it's often helpful if someone can show me on the map where I need to go.
So, is One Picture Worth a Thousand Words?
Who knows. It might be.
And then there are movies.
