Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Every story tells a picture

BoyDadBlog
"Boy & man," Tim Connor, All rights reserved

I didn't know this boy or the man out in the water, but when I went to title the shot I naturally wrote, "Boy & dad." It's remarkable how stories seize us. Now it's hard for me to imagine these two outside a father-son relationship. There's no actual evidence, just a hunch based on body language & memory.

In her comment on my Flickr page, my friend Christine astutely observed the boy's stance: "...the shoulders stiffened with resolve and perhaps pride, but every muscle stopped from any forward motion..." , which convinced me anew. But does the picture really depict a son & his father or do we just want that to be true because it helps make sense of the world?

See a larger version.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

wonderful questioning going on here.
we see from within our familiar cultures; our beliefs structure what we see which is why we are all partially visually disabled


-nancy

Anonymous said...

If you set your mind to it, there are so many stories you can read into these.