005: Power [and Public Practice]

“Maybe the mind works differently in different people, but my father believed the true means of communication is the picture. We are bad at talking, bad at remembering language, and bad at spelling, but we are just great at remembering pictures.” - Walt Kelly

Words versus pictures is the  Unstoppable  Force vs. Unmovable Object storyline of our generation. Social media and the new journalism rules of the modern era paint the picturesque trend that the walls and pottery of Egypt started, and the iMessages of today continue.

I’m not a history major, nor am I much of anything more than a soul attempting to be curious when my nature is to but survive, I can’t speak to the history of lines and light, and why they pierce the brain more than the imaginations drawn by san serif. I know they do, and I know I’m drawn to the romance that an image can speak a volume that my mouth or my pen or keyboard can not. 

Nick Ut’s “The Terror Of War” communicates the realities of war more than a thousand letters from the battlefield. Kevin Carter’s “Starving Child” tells us more about the hungry and the unfortunate than is convenient for a first world citizen. The Times Square snap by Alfred Eisenstaedt gives us a years long romantic timeline in merely a second of a glance. The Tank Man photo shows us strength we can’t even comprehend cultivating in a gymnasium. 

In the facts fighting emotion category, emotion always wins. Emotion isn’t logical, nor peer reviewed. The fact that America isn’t in the top 10 of almost any major quality of life measurement, means nothing when Beyonce hits that one note at 6:05 on Super Bowl Sunday, or when a daughter of a firefighter nails the National Anthem for a Yankees Game Seven. 

Emotion can be exploited, and we’ve seen it in the pulpits on Sundays for all our lives, and on the national political scene for longer then we will ever acknowledge. Emotion is a serious power that can be harnessed, and used to attack, the damage of which, not to exaggerate, can be felt for generations. 

So we as photographers, and directors, and crafters of the image need to be wary, and not yield this grand power lightly. Documentation, creation and distribution of the chosen frame has never been easier, and when a visual strikes that emotional volcano, the creator can no longer control the flow of its lava. 

Here’s some pictures of Public Practice (St. Vitus Bar, Brooklyn, NY)

NW: The Hitman’s Bodyguard

NL: “On Veut Juste” - Gnarrcissists

NR: “Crazy Like A Fox” by Liam O’Rouke 

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