Listen To The Street

- Listen To The Street -

It's been known that one of the most effective ways for writing stories is with the use of picture words. This is something I learned much about back when I was at Columbia College Chicago, as my favorite class (outside of photography) was Writing Workshop. And for most of the class sessions we did a thing called 'listen to the street'.

This is where the professor would open up the windows, as our building was in the deep of the Chicago Loop, and we all were still and quiet as we listened to the sounds on the street. After a short time the windows would close and all of us would share from our notes through picture words what we ' saw ' on the street.

This is where I came to understand the reverse of picture words for my photography, as ' word pictures '.... thus the thought behind my mantra of ' pictures people listen to '. What this means (to me) is that when you study my photographs you should find many elements to describe it in words. This photograph - Chicago L Between The Walls - is only one example:

-- A colorful photograph of the average neighborhood street scene in the Chicago Loop, with sunlight and shadow play, with an L-evated train track between the walls of several different old and new colored buildings down the street. There are cars and people moving about in the shadow of the ' L ' tracks. When I made this photograph there was a dog barking, a person yelling from their window to another person yelling back, a woman with her high-heel shoes tapping as she's walking across the street behind my camera, as well as the roar of an airplane overhead along with the rumble of a distant L train approaching. There's a van slowly moving through the scene with loud music echoing off the different buildings. Yet, amongst all of this activity there seemed to be a scene of peace and quiet moments if you looked for it. --

All this to say that, words play an important role in society and in our relationships. Unfortunately, in our present culture we all need to do a better job of listening to one another. Communication does not take place if listening has not taken place.

I remember back in grade school the Nuns used to say ' God gave you two ears and one mouth, so that you listen more than you talk '. It is said that Saint Augustine used to encourage listening with the heart, to receive words not outwardly through the ears, but spiritually in our hearts: “ Do not have your heart in your ears, but your ears in your heart ”.

And this too is how I aim to communicate through my photographs, spiritually with my heart. For example, watch this weekly short video (that I make) for ' my ' Catholic men's apostolate, here and is on this subject ' Listen To One Another '.



Image reference link: https://frankjcasella.pixels.com/featured/chicago-l-between-the-walls-frank-j-casella.html


Thank you for reading,

Enjoy your day!

Frank J Casella, Art Photographer
Blogger on Fine Art America


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