A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

This old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is so cheesy but so true. It really can take a thousand words (or more) to accurately describe a place, time, event, person or feeling. I believe this is because images evoke a certain emotion that cannot be captured with words.

Recently, I took a photojournalism class. Throughout that class we kept coming back to one main point for each assignment and that was that you need to capture a story with your picture. In other words, it needs to say something about that place. This is what journalism is all about: telling a story. For example, a portrait must tell a story about a person. Annie Leibovitz is the best portrait photographer possibly of all time because she has an ability to capture the essence of a person in her photographs. She tells that person’s story with their portrait.

Since my photojournalism class was a summer class, one of our assignments was to capture the fourth of July and tell its story. I went to Ashland for the Fourth of July where it is a pretty big deal. Every year there is a huge parade and the population of tiny Ashland, OR, which is usually at about 26,000, doubles or even triples. I believe that I really captures the spirit of the Fourth of July in Ashland with these four photographs. So, enough explaining. Let’s let the pictures do the talking!

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