“Photography is the youngest language in the world,” says photographer Asher Svidensky in his most recent TEDx Talk, but why are the words used to describe photography so violent?
Join Asher on his 11-minute talk about how photography can be a bonding tool, rather than a dividing one, how he uses it to express himself and about the universality of photography as a language.
“In almost any language in the world today,” Asher says, “the words used to describe the act of photographing, especially when it comes to people, are some of the most violent of words. Photographers capture, take, steal images. Why is that?”
Asher has already shared with DIYP his thoughts about approaching a subject vs “stealing” a photo, and this is just one of the examples he provides about how one can reach better results by being friendly and reaching out to others.
A storyteller at heart, Asher intertwines stories from his trips as he tells us about a Chinese master silversmith who suddenly became the art director on the shoot or how he spent an entire night communicating without words with a nomad family in Mongolia after his guide got drunk and passed out. Despite not speaking each other’s language, he says he even got a master-class level portfolio review before being shown their own personal photo albums.
More stories, mixed with a few thought-provoking ideas, in Asher’s talk below:
For more of Asher’s fascinating photos and stories visit his website, Facebook page or Twitter account.
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