Jeremiah Tolbert

I came across two items last week that inspired me.  We’ll start with this excel­lent comic about per­ceived truths vs the real­ity of things, “Monstrous Discrepancies” at Subnormality.

The most pop­u­lar post I’ve writ­ten on this blog was“5 Lies Writers Believe about Editors.” I wrote it while I was work­ing as the edi­tor at Escape Pod, and  in it, I wanted to point out some mis­con­cep­tions and cor­rect them, even it didn’t put us edi­tors or authors in a pos­i­tive light. 

My post worked and attracted read­ers for a sim­i­lar rea­son that I find this comic so com­pelling.  The author/​artist takes an obser­va­tion that we’ve all had in our lives at some point and turns it just so, show­ing it from a unique, but nonethe­less truth­ful way.  Again, we go back to this idea that cre­ative peo­ple need to react uniquely.  Simple human truths can be so pow­er­ful in this kind of for­mat.  We rec­og­nize the uni­ver­sal­ity of the ideas imme­di­ately.  Instead of being trite, for me, they are pro­found.  Your results my differ.

Perfect Timing

I don’t have a source or a credit for this pho­to­graph handy, so if you know the author of the image, please share it with me in the com­ments and I will update the post to reflect it. I’ve only clipped a small part of it for the post.  Click on the thumb­nail to be taken to the full image.

There are sev­eral really fan­tas­tic things about this clever pho­to­graph that imme­di­ately grabbed my brain, turned it upside, and shook it until the lunch money fell out of its pockets.

The com­po­si­tion is great.  The rule of thirds says  you don’t want your sub­ject cen­tered, but to pull off every­thing here, it makes sense.  And it doesn’t mat­ter that much, because you have these great guid­ing lines of the shad­ows of the legs lead­ing you into the pho­to­graph from the edges.  Plus, the dog is star­ing at the shadow, another visual indi­ca­tor that leads the eye. 

I’m also in awe of the patience and plan­ning this took.  Yes, the photo was taken with excel­lent tim­ing, but to get that tim­ing, I’m cer­tain the pho­tog­ra­pher must have taken many pho­tos to get the right one. I doubt this photo was an acci­dent, although its gen­e­sis might have been.  The pho­tog­ra­pher planned ahead for this.  Not some­thing I do often enough in my work. His or her per­se­ver­ance paid off.

Once again, we encounter some­one who has a unique way of see­ing things. To have taken this sim­ple street scene and turned into into a story—that takes unique per­spec­tive.  Are these two fated lovers who have sim­ply walked past one another with lit­tle more than a glance?   Are they an ex cou­ple pass­ing with­out acknowl­edg­ing one another, while their shad­ows an echo of the way they felt? What does it mean?  It doesn’t have to mean any­thing, but it makes me won­der and day­dream.  In this day and age, good pho­tog­ra­phy is not hard to find.  I think I take a fair share of good pho­tographs myself.  But work like this, work that demands your atten­tion for more than a second—that is some­thing to which we can aspire.  It rewards you for tak­ing the time to con­sider it.  For that, it really inspires me to do bet­ter with my visual work.