Photographic Prose

Some say that a picture is worth a thousand words. In the excerpt from Agee and Evan’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” the authors utilize their prose to describe these quotidian scenes in a photographic manner. Their prose lists the objects within the scene, succeeding from one item to the next as if following a viewer’s gaze on a photograph and his or her accompanying thoughts. As a result of this, another “photographic effect” is created by the prose. As words cannot fully describe the complete detail of each photograph, the reader is forced to fill in the blank with their imagination as photographic viewers complete the world outside the framed shot. Moreover, as photographs and Agee and Evan’s text only capture singular temporal moments, each viewer and reader is forced to contemplate the events both lead up to and result from the circumstances depicted. Elements of this prose are also reminiscent of the stated goals of social photography in the previously assigned essays. Titled “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” the prose does not, in fact, praise the famous, but instead focuses on the rather and mundane details of everyday life. Thus, as much as social photography is said to democratize the public imagination by bringing the lives of the neglected poor to the front pages of newspapers, this excerpt sheds light on the traditionally neglected details of the average American life. Although these candid portraits of ordinary objects and scenes appear superficially uninteresting, the reader is challenged by every description to interpret and construct a mental picture through the description of each scene. Although this process is more capable of eliciting empathy from the reader, it also diminishes the artist’s control over the interpretation of his or her prose or photograph. Instead of perceiving each scene as the artist intends, the individual reader and viewer would perceive the artist’s work differently based on his or her own experiences. Thus, through this type of “photographic writing,” Agee and Evan is able comment and reflect on the role of perception and interpretation in the photographic art.