The third language

July 21, 2011 by pmelcher.

They say that 95 % of communication is non verbal. This is the realm of photography. It explores and transports through time and space the world that resides outside the Word. Confusingly enough however, we tend to give much more credit, and emphasis, to the written/spoken word.

Our newspapers and magazines spend more space on word than they do on photography, forgetting so often the famous adage that an image is worth a thousand words. We seemed convinced that if we do not read it, or hear about it, it cannot really be real. So, an amazing amount of energy, time, and money is spent on collecting data that can then be transmitted via words when a few images could easily, and more powerfully, do the same. Centuries of dubious philosophies however, started by Plato himself, has taught us not to believe in what we see. A concept that  we still carry well into the 21st century.

However, how many times have we witnessed a scene without hearing a word and immediately understood what was going on : people arguing on a street corner, a women paying for cloth in a store, a kid receiving his first ice cream of the year, all do not need a word for us to understand fully. No explanation needed.It is, in fact, how we understand our world best. Dogs, our best friends, can communicate with us without a word. 

That is what photography is all about, the third language ( words and music being the first two). If your photographs explain, then they have done their duty. If they just replicate, then they are no better than a mirror, or worse, a photocopy machine. No one has every been ecstatic in front of a well done photocopy.

 Photography is about the 95% of our communication that is non verbal. Not a word and yet a universe of comprehension. A vehicle of understanding that even Plato would have enjoyed.

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