Saturday, January 10, 2015

"A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words..."

   In her wonderful blog, 365 Days of Inspiration, Kim Manley Ort wrote about the 1K Photographic Blogging Challenge.  Can you prove the old adage true and write 1000 words about one photograph?  You are not allowed to talk about "technical issues", only your personal response to the image itself.

   This is a lot easier said than done!  150, even 200 words...no problem but 1000 words...that's a lot of words!  I love to write but even I find this quite a daunting undertaking.  But the challenge is really about finding out how deeply you can immerse yourself in one image. My word for the year again!

   In the weeks ahead, I will try the challenge with a photograph I made recently.  I began with what is probably the antithesis of the 1K word challenge, a haiku...

Frozen stillness, blue
Serenity etched on ice
Solitude revealed

   As soon as I wrote the haiku I realized that it included my three favorite words...stillness, serenity and solitude!  Perhaps I could write 991 more words about this photograph after all!  What about you?  Are you up to a January photographic challenge?  Pick a recent photograph and sit with it...let the words flow...immerse yourself in the visual world you felt worthy of photographing.  It might be very revealing.



   

2 comments:

Carol said...

It is so interesting that you strted 1000 words by writing Haiku. I would never have thought in that direction -but it obviously worked to open your eyes! And its a great Haiku. I am up for the challenge, and will give it a try over the next fe co,d days!

Patricia Turner said...

Thank you Carol! I started writing Haiku with the pond series. I find it forces me to see three essential elements of a place. With this image, once I have those three essential elements, Serenity, Stillness and Solitude, I can expand each into a short 300 word essay. It just seemed like a good way to organize the 1,000 words...into mini chapters as it were.