Finding a photograph is often like picking up a piece from a jigsaw-puzzle box with the cover missing. There’s no sense of the whole. Each image is a mysterious part of something not yet revealed.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that photographs are fragments of a larger story, lacking context without the whole picture.
Susan Meiselas compares finding a photograph to discovering a piece from a jigsaw-puzzle box that lacks its cover, indicating that each photograph represents only a part of a greater narrative. Just as a puzzle piece alone does not reveal the complete image, a photograph captures a moment or detail that may evoke curiosity about the broader context and story behind it, encouraging viewers to ponder what remains unseen.
In practice
In a photography workshop, one might use this quote to explain the importance of context in capturing images.
In an essay, you have the outcome in your pocket before you set out on your journey, and very rarely do you make an intellectual or psychological discovery. But when you write fiction, you don't know where you are going - sometimes down to the last paragraph - and that is the pleasure of it.
Nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.
As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance.
For the nature of women is closely allied to art
Design, by definition, is an eco-friendly activity, as its aim is to create objects which are meaningful and durable. Trends always cost resources, but a true designer creates wares which will remain relevant forever.
It's a very excruciating life facing that blank piece of paper every day and having to reach up somewhere into the clouds and bring something down out of them.
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