“Photo-Narrative Form?” [Reflections on: Berger, John and Mohr, Jean, with help from Nicholas Philbert, Another Way of Telling, NY: Pantheon Books, 1982, 308p. - Section 5, subsection 1 of 6]
He’s said a photo is a “Quote”
From daily life, sad parts or joke,
And “Sequences” are, he says here,
“Long Quotes” – which can make meanings clear.But how to make such sequences?
Just “Reportage-pix?” – instances
Shot from “Outside” a daily scene,
Whose use dictates what they will mean?To raise a sequence ’bove all this,
You’d add in other types of pics –
Of different time or place, perhaps
(Breach of convention, frowned-on lapse).There, words are used to spin the yarn;
Few stand-alone’s are left to harm
Such artificial storylines
(“Ambiguous” in place and time).Eye-witnesses, yes, that’s what it is;
Reportage, and journal-biz
Fill CNN and Global News –
Folks “On the scene”, with outside views.So how ’bout “Cinema” as form?
No – it’s reverse in timeframe’s norm;
For “Pix” are retro-spective text,
While “Film” anticipates “What’s next?”At best, film “flashes back” a bit;
Not much, for folks inpatient sit;
Want film to work its future scene –
Anticipate what it all means.No, photos are “historical”
Like memories – rhetorical
For times and places inter-mix
In gathered-sets of bi-gone pix.For Greeks, the mother-art it is –
That’s memory, the poet’s biz –
A story-line, word-pictures shared,
Describing world for which all cared –A metaphor is made to fit
The role pre photographic “clicks”;
All blended in like Dickens’ yarns
With the lengthy intros’ vivid charms.Some thought that mem’ry shares by sight;
Sound coalesces there, and might
Be flavored by reflections’ tweaks –
But pictures base our memories.A photo has a narrow range,
But parallels our memory – strange
How both need time, yet strong oppose
Time’s passage as we both must hold.Minds mix-and-match, new memories make;
Connections link, revealing takes
On what we make of all things, now
That photos shape what thoughts allow.Now revelation has a home.
Beloved by photos on one’s phone,
Then mixed, spun out by software’s scheme,
As “memory-roll” of things once seen.Capacity to freeze-frame thought
Gives time a reason to be stopped
Inside our smart-phones or our minds –
Both ways of memory freezes time.Particular, and general
Can mix-and-match, and often will
Emerge much later – “In the can”,
Or “Darkroom’s soup” – how blessed I am!When “Series” come, they inter-act;
Convergence-point which one pix lacks,
Can hover just outside such sets,
Lifting the viewer’s view, and yet –That’s also what our memory does
With what’s been captured, held,
Because our mem’ries, such that its in flux,
Expanding far beyond “Enough”.Thanks Holy Spirit for this.
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