Those quotes from Gillies conjured powerful impressions in this
imagination.
No, words are not ever truly equivalent to photos (all due respects to my
own late mentor, who, I believe, would concur) but they can stand apart
and possibly parallel -- and on their own can produce images somewhere,
in the mind's eye of the hearer/reader. Less so in languages using
alphabets such as the one we are using here than in those using
ideographic characters (eg Chinese) but still, a skillful wordsmith can
produce catalysts for very strong visual images.
What if there were, behind Gillies' descriptions, no photographs at all;
what if the words described photographs that did not exist? I know this
is not true, but presents some interesting thoughts. It suggests
something near poetry. It is not alt photo, but doesn't it perhaps give
us something to think about regarding all media? These media we call
"alt photo" are a selected set of all photo media which also are a set of
all media. The pie could have been cut another way. I suppose this
would mean something different for each of us.
I appreciate your posting these quotes. For me, they are fascinating.
Larry Bullis
Skagit Valley College