1,000 words

Frederick Barnard is largely credited for the quote “a picture is worth a thousand words,” This statement is popular in many cultures including Chinese, American, and several more. The question is should this statement be taken seriously? Some would argue that a picture can be deceiving; someone could use costumes, backgrounds, and filters to change the time or setting of a photo. On the other it is said that a picture can show a person, item, or place better than even the finest writers description. This statement is much more factual than the first. In fact a picture is worth at least a thousand words.

Humans are very visual creatures. Therefore seeing some form of picture can help humans... study or learn in general, verify a person place or thing, and stir emotion or help spark imagination. Writing can do some of these things as well but as far as verification for lets say a person a descriptive paragraph will not do the job. Another great example of why pictures are so important would be a map. Just think if you are driving and someone tells you directions to their house you might get a little confused however if you have a map that shows landmark and shows you the actual curves on a road you probably more likely not to get lost. There are several more arguments for why a picture is worth a 1000 words.

For instance a single picture can often express many ideas. Everyone has seen a picture/painting that has moved them, and expressed an idea or story. For instance take “The Mona Lisa” that painting tells an entire story and it is simply a woman. Writing cannot describe the settle bits of emotion that crosses a face and it cannot show odd quirks a person may have like a picture can. These two reasoning's are not that important compared to the idea that writing allows less space for imagination.

In class once I was given a picture. From that picture I was instructed to create a story and decide how the picture in my hand came to be. It can be argued that mini stories can be created off of a piece of writing as well. For instance just look at FanFiction.net and you will see hundreds of stories written about Harry Potter or Star Wars. However, these stories are all based off of pre-made characters and ideas whereas just writing off the top of your mind from a picture would spark much more creativity.

All around it would seem that this age old statement does have truth to it. A picture can definitely depict at least 1000 words worth of information.

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