Photo/Imaging: How to Communicate With Camera and Computer

4th edition of a text evolved through 30 years of college teaching.

From the Introduction: It happened again this morning. The "aha!" phenomenon when ideas begin to click into place in students' minds. Their eyes light up. Sometimes grins flash across their faces. A teacher lives for this kind of moment. I begin the discussion by showing the class a large black-and-white photograph of a stalk of celery with a new sprout growing inside it. This image always stimulates perception and comment. After asking, "What is it?" I receive the following response: "A stalk of celery," Mark responds immediately. Then Marlene adds, "With a sprout inside." "OK, that's what it is. Now, what else is it?" I ask. "Let's try word association. Give me single words ... short phrases." "Growth," Jerrie exclaims. Other students contribute words such as fresh, crisp, moist, green, rejuvenation, protection and spring. I turn the photo upside down. "Birth," Mary says. "A stream of milk being poured from a pitcher," Kevin observes. Upside down, the growing sprout becomes the dangling tail of a horse or a donkey. Held sideways, the image becomes a landscape of snow-covered hills; then a canoe. Then I ask, "Where did these ideas come from? Why do we get reactions like these from looking at a picture of a vegetable?" Most of these young women and men are first-year students and they are quick learners. Kate, an English major, explains: "It's like simile in language. Visual simile is when something looks like something else ..." Deanna interrupts. "You mean like when we saw that the celery looked like a landscape when we looked at it one way and, upside down, it reminded someone of the rear end of a horse?" "Yes," Kate continues. "And visual metaphor is when an object in a picture represents something abstract or completely different. As when people mentioned spring and birth and growth. A metaphor is a symbol that only has meaning people bring to it from their personal experience." How could I say it better myself? The best part is that I don't have to explain anything. The students discover -- spontaneously -- a connection between verbal and visual language -- between literature and art. Because they observe it themselves, they'll retain the concept and use it. Many of the photographs they make in future weeks will reveal new vision. They will perceive before their eyes and lenses familiar subject matter enriched by what Ansel Adams described as endless horizons of meaning.