Worth a thousand words?

     In addition to photographing, I like to write.  In fact, at the risk of being labeled a photo heretic, I don't think a picture is always worth a thousand words.  Classic photos, yes.  Compelling photos that evoke emotions and tell a powerful story, yes.  But no matter how good a single photo, or even a series of photos, they are each just a 125th of a second slice of life.  If anything, more photos can be used to lie and mislead than to inspire.  Recently Time has been running a series of photographs from Detroit, showing the blight and deterioration.  Yet I just heard a radio report that says moving the camera slightly to the left of one woeful scene reveals a well kept business and front yard.  Which is the reality?  Both I'd say.  We can lie with a picture just as easily as lying with words.

     Pictures can be easy.  But reading, understanding, reasoning, puzzling out, thinking through...hard work at times.  To capture all the nuances of a complex story, and most stories are complex, I'll take a well researched and written story anytime. We can show a careworn face and feel a visceral reaction, but to really know what that person is about I want to know where he grew up, how his father treated him, did he have friends, what tragedies has he lived through.  I need to read about him, with the luxury of following the author through 5  or 50 or 500 pages...whatever is required to fathom the threads of his life.  I read novels.  I read biographies.  Histories.  Science.  Tougher than staring at a photo, but oh so rewarding.  I love photographs.  But I need words.