Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2012

“A still is a stopped movie.”

It’s funny how a simple comment can alter the way you perceive something. In any consideration/comparison of still and video photography, I usually think about how a moving image (video) is actually a series of still images, shot and projected in quick enough sequence that the eye/brain “sees” a moving picture. This opening quote suggests starting with the perception of motion that is then frozen, rather than going from still images that then create the illusion of movement.

The quote is from “Words and Pictures,” (published 1952) by Wilson Hicks, an Executive Editor for Life Magazine, and the book is Hicks’ look at how photography, photographers, writers, and editors work together to cover a story, some of it modeled on the way Life worked their teams, some of it a hope for photographers to become a more integrated part of the coverage team. It’s the sort of book at first I think I should have read many years ago, at the beginning of my career, because it talks about a lot of the things I learned through experience. Probably would not have mattered much in my learning curve, though. You can only absorb and understand what you are ready for, and knowledge is built in layers, over time.

I like the way the “stopped movie” idea mimics the effort to trigger an exposure at a peak moment, where the image is taut with the tension of what will happen in the next moment.

For more photos from the Buriganga in Dhaka, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index/G0000Pf25lXK9vOc