∴Visual Language∴

From photo-maker to photo-viewer

Two responses struck me when I recently put out the question: Do you write about your photos? I shared some of what was said to me in a previous post, but two photographers offered a phrase that stood out: Visual Language.

As a child I recall putting a sticker on my mom’s dashboard that stayed there for years. I put another on my dad’s side of the closet and he told me once that he smiled at it every day.

Photographs have a unique power to cross boundaries of communication. You don’t need to speak the language of the photographer for their photograph to resonate with you. Photography’s ability to connect has to be one of the reasons it’s such a powerful medium. I think this is also why unambiguous images work so well on social platforms, where they are easily understood. But if an image is less clear, it’s harder for it to cross that boundary.

I asked the woman who’d grown these flowers if I could take her picture with them. She said I should ask young people for their pictures instead. I told her that young people don’t have the time to talk with me and she laughed, walking away.

Photography is also a powerful tool in the search for meaning. My photography practice has become more and more about understanding my internal life (what I think and feel) through documenting my external life (what I see and experience). This has, of course, lead to far more ambiguous imagery.

It’s left me wondering, how do I communicate ambiguity in a way that might help viewers understand?

These stairs lead to a man who told me that only poor people lived here. He invited me into his house, but hesitated at the door. “My wife is sick,” he said, with a smile of apology.

I asked both photographers whether they thought people typically shared a visual language. “Typically? No” was one response. This got me thinking that maybe it was a mistake to presume people could speak my visual language. The meaning in my images are, after all, sometimes unclear even to me. The other response was framed differently, “It’s rare and comforting being able to be on the same page as someone when it comes to a visual language.” I think writing, in my case, may be a powerful way to bring my work and the viewer together.

I search for signs that a place has been lived in for a long time. This family put nails in their hallway wall, a clear a sign of their sense of ownership.

I live in South Korea, and I’ve had to adapt to communicating in a second language. I often don’t have all the words and grammar I need to make my point clearly. I’ve learned to supplement my speech with clear displays of emotion and a lot of gesturing. Often these tools are used right back at me, so that I’ll understand what’s being said. Without gesture and emotion, my Korean can’t stand alone.

It seems to me that photography can benefit from this approach. Writing can sit alongside photos in a way that helps make them just a little easier to read. I want my photographs to convey my ambiguous experience. The right words might make that happen.

A suburb on a hill.

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