A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

An old saying is, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

In the past few days many newspapers, internet news websites and television news have shown us a picture of a house still standing without much damage amidst devastation in the hardest hit area in the Panhandle by Hurricane Michael.

At first glance you would never guess that it is for real, but after the owners of the house were interviewed it was revealed that they planned to make this an almost hurricane proof house and the proof is in the picture.

Early photographic equipment took around 10 minutes to capture the picture, so subjects were often seen very uncomfortable and not smiling as they were forced to stay in place and perfectly still.

The first widely distributed photographs were made by Matthew Brady who took over 10,000 photographs during the American Civil War. His images are still haunting. These photos of the dying and dead of both sides showed the horrors of war without a single word needed.

This newspaper has many photographs each week that document the happenings around Jasper County and the people who are making news, be it good or bad.

My Great Aunt Betty Bullock could neither write or read, but took the local newspaper anyway. Once when visiting her, not aware that she could not read or write, I asked her if she had read a particular story in the newspaper.

She sweetly said, “Janet, I can’t read the newspaper, but I look at the pictures and it tells me the story”.As I learned many years ago from this wise woman, a good picture can indeed tell the story and is worth a thousand words.