Now What Is It Gauthiers Talk About When They Get Together?

In reality, I was with the in-laws this weekend (which is why you didn't see a Weekend Writer or Weekend Links post), which is like being with Gauthiers, but different.

Interpreting A Scene vs. Duplicating An Image

 

We have a family member who is an artist, which led us to discussing last week's passing hot topic, the cover of The Rolling Stone. Then we went on to artists interpreting the scene they are painting vs. photographers who merely duplicate a scene. And we covered art photography in which photographers are, like traditional artists, trying to do something beyond simply duplicating what is in front of them.

Professional vs. Photoshopped Book Covers

 

This whole issue of art as an interpretation of something and photographs merely duplicating life, led someone to bring up the new Saving the Planet & Stuff cover. No, seriously, it wasn't me. Someone else thought of this.

Prior to beginning the eBook publishing project, I had to make a decision about the cover. I very rapidly decided I wanted a professional cover rather than a photoshopped one that we could have done ourselves. The book had originally had professional everything, and I didn't want to take it down from that level.

But my family member pointed out yesterday that this cover is more than merely just a professionally done picture. It is an artist's interpretation of the story. And indeed it is. Eric Bloom's interpretation of Michael Racine's story involved Michael holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was an entertaining way of making the point that the environmental issues Michael is dealing with are important. That was Eric's thought process, his interpretation.

We wouldn't have had that interpretation to work with if we'd bought some stock photos and put them together for a cover. And the stock photos would probably have been nice images that merely duplicated whatever scene an unnamed photographer was looking at. Would they have meant anything?