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The Magic of a Photograph
Friday, April 4, 2008 at 11:04AM Sunday Scribblings Prompt: The Photograph 4/6/08
The photograph is perhaps the single most powerful piece of two-dimensional paper there is. Short of imagery made literally by the human hand…the metaphorical mirrors in a photograph have a supernatural quality about them. The greatest spell ever placed on you was not by a social security card, birth certificate, passport, or green card, but was with a photograph – of that I am sure.
As you walk through the violet door, strands of chotchkes chime and stacked jars filled with some of this, and some of that, quake as though to turn and look at you. The candles, tall and short burn and flicker with your air. The effigy's of saints with discolored robes stare. Magic lives in this place and each little object is infused with the greatest of spirits, your belief.
There are memories that I have that I don’t think I would if not for a photograph. Clearly that stands true for many people. Therefore my life would consist of ‘amnesiatic’ voids, if not for photo albums illustrating my life to me. The power of a visual image in your hands to revitalize the subdued and often muted/conflicted image in our mind’s eye is extraordinary. It includes the sensual body memory aroused simply by the visual.
The elder walks out and clearly reads you without opening her crinkled foiled mouth. Soon she will wave her hands over you, smoke you and spit into the air cursing at invisible evil to clean you. You will leave this place cradling envelopes of powder, ribbons with saints, metal charms and strange dehydrated plant matter. However, before you cross the treshold to exit, she will speak out in tongues and tell you all you need is a photograph to call upon what it is that you want.
I now respect the photograph as one of the greatest tools in a witch’s arsenal. I deliberately rearrange relevant and non-relevant framed images in my home before a visit and they cast spells every time. I do so often in hopes to reinforce connection and meaning of my existence with that of my guests…but it unleashes its own reckoning that I simply have no command over. Images that are meaningless to most, can be boulders of enticed emotions to others. I have had a grown man enter my home in jovial, exuberant spirits ready for an evening of festive repartee be crushed into a bowed head of tears by seeing an image framed on my wall of his long dead mother.
We are all Dr. Frankenstein when it comes to the electrical power of a photograph…we use it to recreate, reanimate living creatures whether they be lost or simply absent grandparents, parents, pets or lovers. We personify that two dimensional plane. If we had the power to physically do so we would all have talking and moving pictures, though we might choose not to bring back the dead. Talking pictures like that in the movie of Amelie and Harry Potter. Which I may add, holds a similar, but very different inflection and physicality than video and home movies. This fine distinction is because a photo captures a frozen MOMENT in time. A moment that becomes an empty carafe which we can then fill up with our own inferred magic like the power to make your twelve facial muscles smile.
http://sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/
Reader Comments (8)
you are so right.. we imbue the photos with human characteristics,, oft times ones not even possessed by the person the photo was taken of...
Evocative, mysterious, and a good blending of the two writing prompts. I have, in the past, described photos and poems as being alike in that they are each frozen moments in time - as compared with moving pictures or narratives.
I do think photos are magic and can cast a spell.
I have a photo of me and a male friend at a formal taken some 25 yrs ago.
As the years passed each time I saw the photo, my thought was - I hope my wedding picture looks this good- I think I liked the pose more than the participants. I saw my friend from the picture recently, and he said he always hoped he could marry me. (shucks, I'm taken) I might have cast the spell without knowing :)
Yes, a photo can so easily become a reflection of our mind, placing into the present a forever changing view of the past.
There is something so mysterious about a photograph because it literally stops time for a split second, so the viewer is always transported to a different world for a moment.
The photograph and the words in this post are stunning.
the italicized(spelling?) portions of this post are amazing, the imagery is so vivid! also, i cherish all my photos, not only is it fun to look back at moments in time from so long ago, but the whole idea that you can capture a moment,person,expression, anything, in a little piece of paper is so neat. they are like little snippits of time caught, that one can keep for oneself.
<33
This pic certainly has a spell that almost drives right inside the spirit. Those eyes! And the set of the mouth line!
Loved your attached reflections!
Gemma
Wow interesting post. I love photographs, they are frozen moments in time. I especially like photos that were taken without the knowledge of the person being photographed. If the photographer is a master he can tell you more about that moment then you would have grasped had you been there. B/W Photography speaks to me more, it allows me to fill in the colors of the mood captured.