Writing or visual/painting/photographs/sculpture/film, etc. ?
Which form carries the most powerful message?

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Wherever my mind isn't
Jim

I'll bite.

The is no right answer for this question. As the sayings go, "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "a picture is worth 1000 words".

I'm a photographer so for me I say the visual is more powerful but I'm biased. I think that whoever said, " a picture is worth a thousand words" completely underestimated how many words can be conveyed in a single image.

How many words and how powerful are these iconic images

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Bill Bates

It depends on the message. The media having the strongest emotional effect on people is music!

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Gunsmithing since 1961

I'm a writer, so I'd like to say it's the written word; but for me it's music and the visual--great photography and painting.

Content, however, is everything.

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Oh well, what the hell.

The picture, regardless of it being a photograph, painting, drawing, or whatever. The above 3 photographs are great examples that tell a story.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

I believe it all depends directly upon the skill of the writer artist or musician. In my case, given my abilities, and experience I would most certainly do better with writing. But I am aware of the power of music and pictures to enhance drama or any other emotion. All 3 have infinite ability limited only on the imagination of the person writing or taking the picture or painting or playing/singing the music.

There may not be a single best answer. But it is a very thought provoking question.

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Real men love cats!

I am a devotee of the written/spoken word. Music, a powerful medium, is the gift of expression I was given. Both however, can require stoking the boiler before they can deliver their payload. The piece has to build steam. The story has to slowly make it out of the rail yard.

The visual is instant. It may take a bit to study, interpret, analyze and contemplate it but it grabbed your attention the moment its reflected light slammed into your retina.

Sculptors, photographers, painters and cinematographers have a view of the world that I never will. I can stare at and be amazed by their work but give me a blank canvas and a burnt stick and I could never visualize what they see in their mind's eye.

Fortunately for me, there are some gifted writers, photographers and craftsmen right here on this forum and we get to see their work for free.

How can you beat that?

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

The tweet.

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- Change it back -

Based on the resources used to create the works, and the hours spent per person nation-wide consuming the works, it seems to me that film would be the most powerful.

I haven't done much writing. My wife's an excellent writer.
I have sculpted, airbrushed, made masks and I've done special effects in basement budget horror films:


I've even won a co-host contest with a werewolf makeup I made out of foam latex:

Made the costume too.

For a while I made custom furniture in my garage workshop:



Now, along with hiking, biking and camping in the surrounding mountains:


I also do leatherwork and run my own video channel.

Recently, I've started a Cigar hobby.


Personally, I guess I get the most out of pictures, video and film.
Also, I like good music. I've just never been able to properly play a musical instrument.

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Keep on Chooglin'

try and paint, sculpt, or photograph the combined work of Shakespeare.

The brain process images far faster than text, so in given period of time, an image could transfer far more meaning than text. So I'll say photographs are the most powerful.

That's easy. Visual. Someone leveled a gun at my face from 3 feet away once. Easily the most powerful message.

A few examples. The Episcopal cathedral in NY. There is a sculpture their dedicated to firemen that lost their lives when a building fell on them. It is made from the burned beams of the building. An iron sculpture that could be flames, or a hand reaching up from the debris. The beams have fallen in a pattern that resembles a cross. I almost cried when I saw that and I'm getting choked up right now.

On seeing La bohe'me for the first time. I was pretty well overcome at the ending, not because it;s sad (which it is) but it was unbelievably beautiful. Pagliacci - Several times you can really feel the pain.

Movies - I could think of many. Not always a pleasant impact. I know I have a soft spot for gallantry in the face of death. But movies elicit a LOT of emotions. I know that when I saw 'Pink Flamingos' on the way out the first thing I wanted was a bath.

Painting - 'Guernica' Total horror from without. 'Starry Night' a feeling of wonder. 'The Scream' Total horror from within. Winslow Homer - "Crack the Whip" brings back good memories. Renoir's 'healthy' girls just make me feel good.

Photographs - The picture of the migrant family - despair, Art Kane "The Modern 10 Commandments", pictures of concentration camp victims.

Modern Dance - Soldiers frolic at night with girls. You can hear the night birds. But when dawn comes they lie down as in a cemetery and the lights go grey.

A LOT of sacred music. Pieces like 'Messiah' evoke all kinds of strong feelings but a lot of the time it's the plain and simple one's that really knock you down. It's rough when something knocks you down when you are trying to sing it.

Secular music - Loads of feelings. At the end of 'Love Story' when Ryan O'Neal finishes telling the story and walk off through the snow and that music starts playing, watch out. Hallelujah' by Leonard Cohen.

Prose when written by Hemingway or Melville.

Poetry - "Stopping by the Woods" by Carl Sandburg gives you a 'you are there' feeling along with being haunting.

Under what category do you put holding a fine piece of worked metal, wood and leather???

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

...photos can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up instantly...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

I have been moved emotionally by many different forms of media. Books, TV shows, movies, photographs, music. I truly cannot say any one of them has moved me more than the others.

Anyone remember the episode of China Beach when Cherry was killed? It felt like getting punched in the nuts. My best friend and I were watching it together drinking beer and neither one of us could make ourselves drink another drop that night.

Wow!! 👏👏👏

You're not just a pretty face are you?

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

I'm one of those 'sensitive dudes' that girls go for. I've gotta have something because I sure don't have looks, charm, gab, money or any of those other things that girls like !

That's ok, being so lacking, I have developed a sense of humor. It's abstract and obtuse, but the girl that understands is the one for me. That's why I married missus smiff.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

One is a quick rush and the other is prolonged.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

What makes you stand on your feet? Great music (People stand during the 'Hallelujah chorus' because George II did). A great A great sports play that could be categorized as physical art in motion.

Here is a strange reaction. Watching 'Unforgiven' I felt an unusual amount of power from the gritty reality it conveyed. Unlike any other western I've watched. 'Das Boot' was up there, but nothing grabbed me like 'Unforgiven',

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I have always loved these 2 pictures of Jane Goodall being approached by a very young Chimpanzee.

No words needed. Every culture in the world will understand this..Pictures speak to all people.

The missing link??? No doubt people can make their own interpretations , but this is very eye opening, and causes most to ask the question-----? Fill in the blanks, and you may just have opened a most interesting door of knowledge and wonder.

Thank you,

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Henry

Mr. Ape has come home. Mrs. Ape is checking him over and says, "What's this, another blonde hair? I suppose you've been doing some more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp!"

Goodall was out of town and her staff saw this cartoon. They were outraged, couldn't wait to tell her so she could sue Gary Larson. When she got back she said she thought it was funny and brought needed attention to her work. She even wrote the foreword of his next book.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"