Bird Three: Other People's Photos

I have been trawling the Flickr site recently and noticed, being the word-obsessive that I am, that a lot of pictures, though tagged, are left title/captionless... It got me thinking about how the title of an artwork can really influence how you interpret it, and also how the juxtaposition of words and images affects meaning.

A good reader/viewer always engages actively with a text, film, painting... participating in the making of meaning. Thus, it's insulting when a director, painter or storyteller gives the reader too much -- if you've no work to do, no effort of understanding to put forth, then there's no motivation to connect, no payoff... but if you are given too little, and can't find a way "in," a way to connect, that's no good either -- the artist has to seek the balance between... Scott McLeod beautifully explains this idea I am butchering in Understanding Comics (A book everyone with any imagination should read).

I have fairly well-developed reading/viewing muscles, as well as a tendency to imbue images, people, and objects with backstory. Such projection is a fundamental human trait. Brain researchers (I can't remember where I heard this -- I think maybe on an episode of NOVA) believe that the capacity for empathy is one of the most powerful human evolutionary traits. Maybe other people don't tend to extend it beyond humans and animals as much as I...

Anyway, back to Flickr, I stumbled on this picture, randomly, and was tickled by the caption. It made me like the photographer. It's sort of weird that the social web allows us to become routine, often invited, voyeurs into other people's lives, thoughts, creations. I know, and believe in the incredible potential of the real connections, extensions, creative leaps and communities that are made in this shared digital landscape, but I also believe that the sheer mathematics of it all means that we consume (view, read, listen, watch) way more than we (most of us, anyway) ever actively respond to.

Which leads me to my third bird... in which I poem-caption a few of Other People's Photos...

I began with a full-text search for "IMG" plus "kids" and then "IMG" plus "people." I have also gotten permission from each of the photographers to use their photos for this exercise (Thank you!).

	Cyrus was a nomad in his bones; Our need to hold him could not hold him still. We used to joke that he was born wearing wheels -- called him our "hummingbird boy," (or, "Sharkbaby," during ornery times); We gave him what we could for the journey; set him loose because there was no other way. Photo by Volkswitt
Photo by Pink Sherbet	At five, you never named your aches, but felt. Now silent, now with wailing, flailing, wrenching, spouting forth, unconscious swell – a spell too vast to be contained – you rained, would not be reined, remained submerged where loss collected, rant and tantrum intersected, made a mess, lived your distress with five's great knowing, wove your being through its core and wore it threadbare, felt it more. At five, you breathed it fresh – oh, surely, purely, how you held on tight and wept, then, dreamless, slept.
	I am never myself. I have a hundred selves. When you see me, notice the aching curve of eyelid, nostril, lip and chin, jawline and neckline, slipaway braid. Linger at my shoulder and apprehend this: I curve toward a self I have yet to invent. Photo by Ex.Libris
Photo by Gus is a Great Name	These tragic feet, these sugared doughnuts, these tender filthy piggies, these criss-crossed cuddlers, these mute messengers, these expectant soles, these compass needles, these leathered prayers, these hopeful feet.