picture-worth-a-thousand-words « WordPress.com Tag Feed

2011 in review

LizzieCracked — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:05:25 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an

One Winter Day

Ria — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:21:38 +0000

I raced across the wide landscape on my snow mobile, leaving deep tracks behind me as I cut a path t

Weekly Photo Challenge - Self Portrait

LizzieCracked — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:33:56 +0000

Self Portrait – How to portray my self to myself, to show you who I am. I am anything and al

The Shoe Phenomenon

Ria — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:51:58 +0000

I glanced up at the dead tree before me. But I did not trace with my eyes its ash grey trunk and cro

Weekly Photo Challenge - Celebration (Hail to the Queen!)

LizzieCracked — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:17:52 +0000

Celebration Odd though it may seem, that cookies fit this theme, They are a symbol of the Celebrator

Aerial Invasion

Ria — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:33:33 +0000

“Code 202, assemble fleet in dock 36 and prepare to attack!” “S.O.S! Call the commander! Incoming un

Weekly Photo Challenge - Waiting

LizzieCracked — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 02:43:57 +0000

Waiting for Santa, is he coming tonight? No it couldn’t possibly be the fire’s alight! T

Weekly Photo Challenge - Family

LizzieCracked — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:17:09 +0000

Posted from the teeny tiny keyboard on WordPress for Android Family - is Christmas Time. We may n

Dreamcatcher

Ria — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:42:35 +0000

The dreamcatcher swayed in the breeze blowing in through the halfway open window. It’s muted brown a

Crazy Turkey Leftovers

LizzieCracked — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 06:58:53 +0000

http://cdn.content.sweetim.com/sim/sweetim_wink.swf?ContentURL=http://cdn.content.sweetim.com/sim/cp

Weekly Photo Challenge - Breakfast

LizzieCracked — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:17:45 +0000

Breakfast……This indeed poses a challenge as I am one who only likes a cup of coffee in t

Weekly Photo Challenge - Wonder

LizzieCracked — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 03:29:12 +0000

“Mom looook” I heard my 7 yo say in wonder as she bent over to pick up what caught her e

Weekly Photo Challenge - Windows

LizzieCracked — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 09:44:49 +0000

The Windows of the car…. make seeing the world’s beauty at high speed an expectation. t

Weekly Photo Challenge - Hidden

LizzieCracked — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:59:45 +0000

The world below is hidden from me as I am hidden from it……. Some others Interpretations

Weekly Photo Challenge - Opportunity

LizzieCracked — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 04:46:51 +0000

Opportunity; A Chance, A possibility due to favorable combination of circumstances I am intrigued

~A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words~

Callens Honey Farm — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 04:32:05 +0000

Another busy week has flown by very quickly. The following photos were taken at some time this week

Photography Story - Facing Fear

stephaniehalstead — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:36:56 +0000

You never know when, where or what the next photo opportunity will be. Keep your camera battery charged and your camera nearby! A surprise may be waiting for you.

This isn’t the type of photo I usually shoot. I like to shoot images of beauty and frankly I just don’t think frogs, toads, etc. are pretty. However, this image does tell a story. Seeing this little guy riding on the plastic duck chlorine dispenser in our backyard pool reminded me of a story in my past when I had to face fear.

In elementary school one of my science class assignments was to bring a frog to school. As a child I was afraid of frogs, so I was not excited about this assignment. My Uncle Bill caught a frog for me, put it in a shoe box and cut a small hole in the lid for fresh air. On my Monday morning bus ride to school, I had to hold the box on my lap at arm’s length. Each time the frog jumped up and down, thumping against the sides of the shoe box, my little heart did a big “thump” in my chest. Several times when I looked down at the box, I was startled to see part of his head peeking through the air hole as he looked up at me. That was the longest bus ride of my life!

On a side note, the teacher canceled the lesson due to lack of frogs. I was the only one who did the assignment!

Everyone has their own story. Try capturing images this week that tell your story, maybe the part most people have never heard. It may be pictures you find in a magazine, on the web or ones you shoot with your camera. If it really is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, what do your images “say”? Remember it’s your story. Let me know how it goes.

A picture is worth a 1000 Words

Nico Steyn — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:00:22 +0000

All this talk about Einstein and Visualization got me thinking this morning about a T-Shirt I once bought in Asia, while traveling on a seminar. When I got into my seat to fly to Singapore, a gentleman asked me if I knew what the Chinese inscription meant. I admitted that I just bought it because thought it looked cool. I later found out from someone that it read: “A picture is worth a thousand in gold” and that this phrase was attributed to Confucius.

Then I came across the wonderful art of Stephane Kardos, who is an Art Director at the Walt Disney Company in Los Angeles. Stef also posts word in progress on his blog, and it lead me to understand once again how important “sequencing” is in thinking, and coming up with the right solution. He posted his thoughts around coming up with a seasonal card over december, and he has gracefully allowed me to share it here with you:

The sketches got me thinking that this is a great example of “storyboard” brainstorming; it demonstrates how one could make sketches (even stick figures) of your problem, then think about the sequence and how you can shuffle it about to tell the story differently, thereby finding different solutions to the problem. If you want to see how Stef resolved this particular line of thinking, you’d have to go to his blog: HERE.

MAPS, PLANS & DIAGRAMS

Another technique that involves drawing, is methodology that often pops up in the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein; drawing a map or overhead layout of the problem, even a diagram. Einstein was a firm believer that words may get in the way to describe a situation, and that the strong emotional context of graphs or images could lead to better insights.

IMAGE SEQUENCING

Also called Image Streaming by Win Wenger, describes a methodology Albert Einstein used often. I’m going to try and describe the practical way you could attempt it right now. (I used it this morning, with some very effective results!)

Method:

Get comfortable in a quiet space, removed from any distractions
Have a recording device ready, on your laptop or a dictaphone
Breath deep, relax and empty your mind; close your yes
For the next 5 to 10 minutes, describe what you see in your mind’s eye
Begin with a visual, any visual, and see what comes up next. Describe in as much details as you can, what other images come up
With this process you can “invent” surprises, such as doors or covered objects; imagine a door opening and you find/discover …

Spend time listening back to your journey of the mind’s eye, and then think through the meanings of images or discuss it with someone. Try and create a “return loop” with your brain and search for reasons these images may have connected.

What’s good:

This method will increase your visualization abilities and imagination. In a sense, they are thoughts directly from your subconscious, and as you get better at connecting with these “inner thoughts”, you may find that you can even begin a session by telling you subconscious where to go and look for solutions to a particular problem.

I’ve heard Dr. Edward de Bono suggest that one “write a letter to your mind”, then leave your subconscious to deal with this issue over two or three days. This method could extend into “dream solving” or whatever you’d like to call it, but it is a very powerful tool to embrace your imagination.

Now’ I’ve probably just rambled on again. Wishing everyone a Day of Great Thoughts!

A picture is worth a thousand words challenge

J.C — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:46:51 +0000

So, I finished my story yesterday afternoon, and am fairly happy with the outcome. It was more of a snapshot, a scene which came to me when I looked at the image given than anything else.

Oh, and here is that picture, in case you didn’t see it over on Karen’s blog:

I have tweaked it a little, and it comes in just under the 1000 word goal. Then I decided to wordle it, to see if there were any mundane words being over used. What I discovered is that the main ones were all directional, which I guess is okay because there is a lot of movement and it’s important to get things right. However, I think I’m going to have to go through and tweak a couple of the towards and back’s out of it.

Because of the content of the story, I’m not putting it in a blog post, but it will go over on the story time page, probably later on today. I’ll try to update this post when I get that done. (It’s up now)

Now, Lauren is asleep and I shall attempt to throw myself into this new story! Wish me luck

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Drew — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:01:56 +0000

Walter Ong says in his book Orality & Literacy that “We have all heard it said that one picture is worth a thousand words. Yet, if this statement is true, why does it have to be a saying? Because a picture is worth a thousand words only under special conditions – which commonly include a context of words in which the picture is set.”

I’m a visual person, I value visual literacy. The following is my visualization of Ong’s statements.

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Hands, Feet, Fingers, Toes

Second Wind Publishing — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:58:34 +0000

It is not necessarily true that a picture is worth a thousand words. It takes only a few words, if they are the right words, to create vivid portraits. The secret is to choose significant details — details that mean something, that promote the story, that evoke emotion — rather than to write long passages of trivia.

In The Blue Nowhere, Jeffery Deaver tells us about Wyatt Gillette, a computer wizard, by focusing our attention on Gillette’s hands. Gillette has thick yellow calluses on the tips of his muscular fingers, and even when Gillette is not at a computer, his fingers move constantly as if typing on an invisible keyboard. I know somewhere in the novel Deaver described Gillette, but did he really need to? Don’t we get a feeling for the character from those two significant details?

By describing a character’s hands, we can describe the character. A man with manicured and buffed fingernails is different from one with grime permanently etched into his cuticles. A woman with bitten fingernails is different from one with dirty, broken nails, and both are different from a woman wearing designer acrylic nails. The color of nail polish a woman chooses tells us about her character. And clear nail polish on a man would tell us about his character.

We can describe hands in many ways: claw-like, thin, scrawny, big-knuckled, blue-veined, plump, fat, chubby, arthritic. Characters can have tattooed hands. They can wear gloves, a simple wedding band, or multiple rings on each finger.

Hands also do things. They wave, point, gesture, touch chins or noses, and each of these gestures and mannerisms tells us about the character.

What is there to say about toes? Think about a woman who wears severe suits and a severe hairstyle but paints her toenails crimson. That contradiction makes us want to know more about her. Or think about a man with a mincing walk stemming from shoes so small they pinch his toes.

I know it’s easier to talk about writing in general, but most of us (or maybe just me) can benefit from a more pointed discussion. So think hands, feet, fingers, toes.

Pat Bertram is the author of More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire now available from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Strength in Numbers

zoefinkel — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:08:49 +0000

They are hard to see, but the ants are there, making their move.

Writing to the Extremes

Pat Bertram — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:58:54 +0000

Hands also do things. They wave, point, gesture, touch chins or noses, and each of these gestures and mannerisms tells us about the character.

And don’t forget fingers and toes. What is there to say about toes? Think about a woman who wears severe suits and a severe hairstyle but paints her toenails crimson. That contradiction makes us want to know more about her. Or think about a man with a mincing walk stemming from shoes so small they pinch his toes.

Do you remember to use the extremities in your novels? How do you use them? What ways can you use them, but don’t? Can you think of ways to describe characters by their extremities alone? What gestures or mannerisms can define characters? What gestures or mannerisms can characters use that may be fresh and not trite? (For example, restless feet can denote lying, or a desire to be somewhere else, or boredom.) What other example can you think of (or have already written) where a character’s extremities play a significant role? Is it better for the extremities to match the character or contradict it? Shoes are a significant fact of life; how do shoes figure into your novel?