25 Oct

What is it that a photograph tells of a moment?  A photograph captures a moment, tells of what it is, tells it to another.  But oh how shallow that story is.  How short it may be.  What is lost if that is all that is told?  What of the smell of the wet stone warming in the sun after a night’s rain?  What of the feel of a breeze as it touches the back of your neck while you look up?  The sound of those around you, or perhaps the silence in their absence?  A photograph tells of only a part.  But to translate that moment, to tell it’s story to another, there must be more.  Architecturally, a translation must go beyond the form, beyond the reference, beyond simple photographic identification of similarity.  A successful translation must capture the sense, the essence, might say Ricoeur.  Perhaps it translates the sense of monumentality, of grandeur, of it’s enormity.  A display of dominance, of cultural pride.  These are not construction techniques, these are not building materials, paint colors, nor formal mimicries.  What is translated are ideas.  They could be intentions, or perhaps receptions.  They are perceived essences, they are interpretations.  And with all interpretations come misinterpretations.