After an evening rain I awoke to fog and low clouds playing games with the mesas of central Utah. Actually it seemed more like a rapid military invasion and conquest.
I was quite sincere in my Photographic Manifesto that there is a worthwhile purpose to cluttering the internet with one more photograph. That purpose is the visual representation of an important idea, rather than trivial prettiness and entertainment. Visual representations of ideas have advantages over the tedious word-wrangling of authors.
The trick is to photograph things that suggest -- that lure -- the viewer into finishing the connection between different objects in the photograph. But it must not be too difficult to make the connection, or the viewer won't even try. They will just say, "This photograph really ain't that purdy." And then turn away from it.
It would please me to see readers offer metaphorical captions to the photograph above. For my part, it reminds me of the essay by William Graham Sumner, "The Conquest of the United States by Spain." (in his essays, a free ebook from libertyFund.org ) When two opponents fight a war, the "winner" might end up taking the form of the loser. Looking back on it, the nominal winner may ask, "What was the point of the war? We became what we hated." The fog seems to be doing that to the mesa.
I was quite sincere in my Photographic Manifesto that there is a worthwhile purpose to cluttering the internet with one more photograph. That purpose is the visual representation of an important idea, rather than trivial prettiness and entertainment. Visual representations of ideas have advantages over the tedious word-wrangling of authors.
The trick is to photograph things that suggest -- that lure -- the viewer into finishing the connection between different objects in the photograph. But it must not be too difficult to make the connection, or the viewer won't even try. They will just say, "This photograph really ain't that purdy." And then turn away from it.
It would please me to see readers offer metaphorical captions to the photograph above. For my part, it reminds me of the essay by William Graham Sumner, "The Conquest of the United States by Spain." (in his essays, a free ebook from libertyFund.org ) When two opponents fight a war, the "winner" might end up taking the form of the loser. Looking back on it, the nominal winner may ask, "What was the point of the war? We became what we hated." The fog seems to be doing that to the mesa.
Comments
For my (anonymous) part, the photo reminds me that everything is temporary, and that some things are more temporary than others.
What I do have is a free Kindle download for "Democracy: The God that Failed" - found it by accident. It is going to be week or two before I can even think about reading it but I'll provide a review when I do.