Words and Pictures

Allegedly, a picture is worth 1000 words, so the three photos of the Tournesol I’m posting here ought to cover almost ten of my blog postings.

I guess that seems about right, but it probably depends on what the pictures are and what the words are.

For instance, Shakespeare’s words compared to a snapshot I’ve taken, would probably come out no worse than even. Certainly the word “perchance” as in “perchance to dream” has got to count for more than that photo I took of my index finger in front of the Space Needle the other day, doesn’t it?

And no doubt there are pictures that are worth way more than merely 1000 of their scribbled counterparts, right? Some of Van Gogh’s pictures run upwards of 50 million bucks, don’t they? Seems to me that would buy a lot of talking.

And I think I heard this week that some guy paid like a million and a half dollars for a film of Marilyn Monroe performing fellatio on an unidentified male; granted, those were moving pictures, but still, if you paid me $1.5 million, I’d be happy to give you as many words as you could stomach.

Anyway, the photos of the bike look great; they were done by Steve Hampsten’s photographer, Michael Matisse, and to me they are definitely artistic enough to do the shutterbug’s namesake artist proud. (Granted I’m biased because I’ve ridden the bike, but suffice it to say that it rides even better than it looks.)

There’s a saying that I read all the time on the internet when people are bragging about some experience or another they had: “pix or it didn’t happen.”

As for me, I don’t really buy that; for me, it’s enough to have a written account; there’s something that makes it even more real for me when it’s in text. And that’s especially true when I’m writing about things in my own life and especially in 327 words.