Just a thought...

A little short post, with a little ponder...

Melancholy, Time & Nostalgia.

A photograph captures moments that we will never recover, the act of photography itself is one of capturing past things. 

Why are we obsessed with seeing what has past, or constructing a picture to create the illusion of reality? 

We 'pose' for photos, and include or exclude things.

We construct it.

It is no more 'real' than a painting.

We make a picture.

So why, in English, do we say that we take a picture?

Why are we obsessed with a kind of ownership over a past moment?  

Taking the image of that moment to keep?

Why do we choose to show some things and not others?

"A picture tells a thousand words", we say.

But what words?

Is a picture more, or less, open to interpretation than words are?

We often try to create a narrative, a story, a selection of ideas or insinuations that we wish the viewer to see.

But we then make assumptions about the viewer, how they will interpret it, what cultural connotations they may have about what has been photographed, and how it has been photographed.

Will a photo mean the same thing across time?

Will different eras interpret it differently, or is there such a thing as a 'timeless' image?

Something that transcends culture, time, country, language...?

Universally understood?

Or perhaps merely the universal feeling of melancholic nostalgia.

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