1000 Words

"A picture is worth 1000 words". According to Wikipedia, the modern usage of this phrase is attributed mainly to an article by Fred R Barnard, but similar pharases have been used throughout history, going back as far as Napoleon Bonaparte, or even the ancient Chinese empire. Of course, back then, a "picture" was harder to come by. You either had to draw one by hand, or, within the last 200 years or so, painstakingly set-up that massive camera and have everyone hold their pose for 30 seconds. Not so much anymore. These days, all you have to do is break out your tiny little $300 compact camera, snap a few pictures, and post them on the internet for all to ignore. Fantastic.

In an age of excess, picture taking is one of the most abused and least griped about topics. Photography has been made available to the masses, but should it be available to the masses? Yes, yes, everyone has a right to this and that, and everyone deserves that and the other, and people fought and died for our freedom so that we could yadda yadda. Whatever. Facebook is full of crappy pictures taken by morons. There, I said it. I'm pretty sure if the Allied veterans of Normandy knew that their efforts and blood would only buy the world the freedom to post crappy pictures of useless pets, stray animals, and mind bogglingly ugly self-portraits, they'd turn around, get back on their boats, and leave France.

You see, I think a picture USED to be worth a 1000 words. This was when a picture was taken with plenty of forethough and planning; when a picture required work and, in some cases, a little bit of suffering. Something about that made it a much more worthwhile endeavour. It gave it meaning; it gave the picture soul. Not anymore, however, because the suffering and "soul" has been removed from the equation.

No, that vividly colourful picture of a seagul pearched atop of a light standard is not artistic, you douchebag, because I can probably replicate the same picture in about 5 minutes.


As with most things in our modern world, the beautiful, meaningful things in life have been overly manufactured, mass produced, and mechanized to the point that it is no longer beautiful or meaningful. Don't get me wrong, this has made documentation much, much simpler. A photograph of a car for insurance purposes, or pictures taken of a construction site are small examples of the usefulness of cameras and pictures in general. However, that is what pictures have been relegated to: documentation. The art of photography is dead. Yes, I'm sure there are many thriving artists out there whose images can still move us to tears, but their images are drowned out by the millions upon millions of kissy faced self-portraits, and questionable black and white images of lawn furniture that litter the public spaces of the internet. It's almost like looking for a finely crafted needle in a stack of crappier, inferior needles.

Pictures still convey a message far more quickly than the written word ever could, but the pictures we see today (like everything else we see today) don't really have anything meaningful to say. As it stands, with the amount of pictures out there, most of you really just need to shut the f*ck up.

-Jack the Stripper