A picture is worth a thousand words…

On October 30, 2009, in Featured, by tgoodridge

bordeauxfinal


(photo credit- Flikr and Dwell Magazine)

About three months ago, I was talking to some folks over at Latitude- this very innovative research, creative, experience company (think Mullen+ Mechanica + Nielsen and lots more) and they showed me this picture….

At first I didn’t think much about it, but after their CEO Steve gave me some background on this photograph, I was incredibly intrigued by it.

This is a picture of the Mirror D’eau in Bordeaux France, where Steve was this past summer. Essentially, it’s a  giant rectangular piece of granite, covered with a thin film of water. At times, this architectural wonder can create a thick fog, like you see in the picture above. Other times, it simply reflects the city, the sky, and Bordeaux’s beautiful 18th century Stock Exchange building.

For Steve, this image conjures up thoughts of old and new, an old French city embracing the 21st century. And perhaps it’s a reflection, literally, of what’s happening in today’s changing world.. I’m not usually this reflective (pardon the pun) but it makes me think about:

- the pace of life- see the family on the left walking “through” the space
- the two people meeting in the background- having a conversation- about what?
- the two kids looking down at their reflections- why have they stopped, and what are they looking at?
- and my favorite, what’s up with the fog?…

If you’re feeling reflective today, What do you think?

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  • http://hooversbiz.com Tim Walker

    Interesting image, Tyson.

    What strikes me is the divergence of experience of the people in the picture. As you suggested in your bullet points, there’s a range of people experiencing a range of thoughts and emotions, even though they’re all in the same setting.

    This reminds me of people’s widely varying takes on other shared areas of experience — for example politics or social media. I had a guy tell me recently that, despite his relatively active use of Twitter, he hadn’t found it to be a good place for starting conversations. If I weren’t braced for such diversity of reactions in general, I would have been dumbfounded. As it was, I just encouraged him to look through my Twitter stream to get an idea of how conversational it *could* be.

    In whatever context, it’s worth keeping in mind how differently each of us may experience the same setting.

  • http://www.enterdialogue.com Tyson

    Agreed! …To me the image seems both calm (right had side of the photo) and fast paced (left hand side of the page) Seems as if we need a bit of both for some balance in life…and we certainly need some balance! Thanks for checkin’ in here!

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