Friday, October 13, 2017

Worth a Thousand Words? - A Writtin' Thing

"A picture is worth a thousand words" - a saying we all know. We use this to caption pictures of beauty. "This says it all" - "Can't add anything' - tags we might include after the proverb. But is a picture really worth a thousand words? I was driving from Longview to the coast today, and was the recipient of some fabulous views as the sun set amidst puffy white clouds and green hills. Honestly one of the most gorgeous sunsets I've seen. I snapped a few pictures, thinking about sending them to fellow enthusiasts, when this saying struck me. Could I describe the images I had seen in a thousand words? That's a little over a page of writing.
Perhaps in the days of paintings and perchance spreading into the early years of photographs, pictures were truly worth a thousand words. However, I no longer think they hold that value. Images, being pictures and videos, have taken such a dominant role in our culture that I think more people are prone to snap a picture (or several) with a tagline to describe something - especially over written forms of communication. I think we've lost the ability to verbalise sunsets and sorrows, a prodigal return, a moment of time, a wandering gaze. Pictures are no longer worth a thousand words. What do you think?

P.S. - 224 words...

Friday, October 6, 2017

The Writtin' Thing

I was recently challenged to write. Write about…well, almost anything. Get things to paper (figuratively). Express thought in coherent organisation. Math, history, arts, sciences, hypothetical, it doesn't matter what, but get something down and practice. So that's what I'm gonna try to begin. Fridays are going to be fun. Not because of anything besides the fact that I'm going to have something written, whether or not it's relevant to an "audience" but simply trying to communicate. Short scenes drawn from an every day occurrence, weeklong prepared works, poems. Regardless the content or genre, it will be original. So, here's to another resolution to writing! I'm going to call this series…


The Writtin' Thing