“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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