Do you read that in the streets?
[TIL #38] On collecting the pieces of a non-existing puzzle
Folks, in this edition of the Tales of Ink and Light, the words are in the pictures.
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When you wander in urban public spaces, you’re given guidelines by road signs and you get instructions from advertising boards of all sizes. If you’re moving leisurely, you may notice that certain streets host rich open-air art galleries. These days, some of the street art is commissioned by public authorities, but there remains lawless graffiti, that is, complex graphic elaborations based on a word that signifies the identity of a person or group.
And then, almost devoid of aesthetic quality, there are myriads of words that erupted on walls like thoughts only partially formed or suspended screams. Quickly and roughly painted, they will speak only to those who accept to listen carefully.
It’s usually easy to take a quick snap, although sometimes you need to include the context in the frame, as it really gives the words a particular meaning. The outcome is most often a rudimentary image.
At the moment you spot it, one of them raw street words might resonate with a day’s thought or plant the seed of an idea in your mind. But why collect them? And, as for pebbles you pick up at the seaside, how do you select the ones you keep? Glimpses into incomplete stories, protest slogans, quips or groaners, they’re no more than the scattered pieces of a non-existing puzzle.
Or might they be pages ripped out of the diary of an invisible person you might meet some day? The bread crumbs that guide you to a fabulous destination? The emerged signs that tell the legends of an underground universe?
Here goes: a few images from a never-ending hoarding process.
These two in the same street, a few weeks apart.
And if this all sounds too serious…
Just one suggestion this time:
The PhotoEthics Centre has published Eight Key Lessons in Photography Ethics based on 48 episodes of their podcast. Absolutely worth a read if you regularly hold a camera in your hands.
Thank you for taking part in the Tales of Ink and Light. It’s good to have you on board.
Pierre François