如今文字生命力弱化 未來會拍照者得天下

In the spring of 2013, two digital photos became an Internet sensation. The first, taken in 2005, depicts a crowd gathered at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II’s funeral. It is shot from behind—backs of heads turned up, and in the bottom right corner, a lone flip phone pointing toward a balcony. The second, taken from an analogous spot in 2013, depicts another throng welcoming the new leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. The photos are nearly identical except for one defining feature. In the 2013 shot, a sea of screens—iPhones, iPads, Androids—rise up above the heads of onlookers, offering a powerful permanent form of witness.
2013年春年，有兩張數碼照片在網絡上引起了轟動。第一張攝於2005年，畫面中是人頭攢動的梵蒂岡教廷廣場，人們在教皇若望·保祿二世的葬禮上舉行悼念活動。這張照片是從後面拍攝的，滿眼望去，都是翹首向前看的背影，只有照片的右下角，有一支孤零零的翻蓋手機對準一座陽臺進行拍照。第二張照片幾乎是在同一個地方拍攝的，畫面中是正在歡迎新加冕的方濟各教皇的人羣。這兩張照片幾乎一模一樣，區別只有一點。在2013年的這張照片中，大大小小的屏幕匯成了光暈的海洋，人們高高舉起自己的iPhone、iPad和安卓手機，見證這歷史性的一刻。

Something profound has happened in the time between that first photograph and the second: cheap, dead-simple cameras have crept into everything. By one analyst’s estimate, a billion cameras were added to smartphones and tablets manufactured in 2012. All these cameras have made billions of people into photographers, able to capture and share images of anything with a basic technical proficiency. No one needs to know how a camera works. No one needs to know what an f-stop is, or how to manipulate darkroom chemicals. No one has to be a good photographer to take good photos. One only has to point, shoot, and share.
拍攝第一張照片和第二張照片之間的短短几年，發生了一些影響深遠的事情：物美價廉、操作簡便的照相機已經進入了千家萬戶。根據一位分析師的估算，在2012年生產的智能手機和平板電腦中，大約有10億部都帶有照相功能。這些攝像頭讓幾十億人都成了攝影師，只要學會最基本的操作，就能捕捉和分享任何影像。人們不需要懂得照相機的工作原理，不需要知道什麼是光圈，也不用學習怎樣在暗房裏沖洗膠捲。攝影不再是專業攝影師的專利，大家需要做的只是點開相機，然後拍照、分享。

According to Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report, released May 28, we currently upload and share 1.8 billion photos every single day. This sheer abundance has redefined the nature of the photograph entirely. Pictures are no longer precious; there are just too many of them. Once collected and preserved as art, or to document memories, they are now emerging as a new language, one that promises to be both more universally understood and accessible to anyone. Witness the rise of a new visual vocabulary. Photos, along with emojis, video snippets, GIFS, and other imagery, are replacing written language for many of the things we once relied on words to express.
根據華爾街證券分析師和投行家瑪麗o米克爾今年5月28日發佈的《年度互聯網趨勢報告》，如今我們每天都會在互聯網上上傳、分享18億張照片。這樣海量的照片已經徹底重新定義了“攝影”的含義。圖片再也不是什麼稀罕東西，因爲它們實在是太多了。照片曾經一度被視爲藝術被人珍藏，或者被當作記憶的定格被人儲存，但現在它已經成了一種新的語言，一種人人都懂、人人都會用的畫面語言。近年來，我們已經看到了一種新的視覺詞彙的興起。除了照片，還有表情符號、視頻片段、GIF動畫和其它圖片形式，它們已經可以取代很多過去我們需要依賴文字來表述的東西。

We’ve seen this mass shift in literacy before. Until fairly recently in history, literacy was restricted to the professionals—a small group of educated scribes and religious figures understood to be fit to translate Biblical texts and render contracts. In the 1400s, Europeans were considered literate if they could spell their names—and 80% could not. Then came the printing press. Within a century, people could read and write in growing numbers, and the literate were able to express complex ideas in writing. This mass shift in literacy ushered in progress in science, general education, and the arts. We are now entering a similar period for images. Our smartphones and the Internet that enables them are the modern-day equivalent to movable type, and these tools are still very new.
這種大規模的轉變以前在歷史上也出現過。一直到離我們不算很遠的歷史時期，讀書寫字都是專業人士的工作，只有一小部分受過教育的抄經人和宗教人士的文化程度達到了能夠翻譯宗教典籍和制訂契約的程度。15世紀，歐洲人如果能拼寫出自己的名字，就算是識字了，但是有80%的人都拼寫不出自己的名字。然而隨着印刷機的出現，不到一個世紀，人們的閱讀量越來越大，識字的人已經可以用筆墨表達複雜的含義。識字者的大規模增加直接促進了科學、教育和藝術的進步。現在我們在圖片上也進入了一個類似的時期，智能手機和互聯網所起的作用正如當年的活字印刷術，而些這些工具現在仍然處於發展的早期。Like many mainstream Americans, I uploaded my first digital photograph to a web site called Shutterfly in 1999. An early adopter, I registered for a Facebook account in 2005, though it took three years for my friends and family to join the service with enough mass to make it a reliable platform for communication. And I got an iPhone in the fall of 2007, shortly after Steve Jobs introduced a device so radical it transformed the phone into a camera.
像許多主流的美國人一樣，我在1999年把我拍攝的第一張數碼照片上傳到了一個叫Shutterfly的網站上。2005年，我又是較早一批註冊Facebook的人，不過直到三年後，我的家人朋友才紛紛開始使用這項服務，讓它成了我的一個可靠的交流平臺。2007年，喬布斯推出了把能手機變成相機的劃時代產品iPhone，我也在2007年秋天買了一部。

Now it’s 2014, and I have taken 500 photos in the past month. They include a daily snapshot of my dog on our morning walk, holiday photos of family members cooking together, photos of my notes from interviews, of business cards, the tag to a dress I might buy, the milk I need to pick up from the store. And a hastily snapped “selfie,” or self-portrait, of myself frowning in the dentist’s office, sent to my partner to make the point that I hate visiting the dentist.
現在到了2014年，我光是上個月就拍了500多張照片，包括每天早上遛狗的照片、假期與家人一起做飯的照片、採訪時的照片、拍到手機裏的名片、我想買的一條裙子的標籤、我想去超市裏買的一種牛奶，等等。另外還有一張自拍，是我在牙科診所裏皺着眉頭的表情，我把它發給了我的搭檔，表明我多討厭去看牙。

For the most part, these photos are not designed to document an occasion. They have become a visual shorthand that is at once more emotionally resonant and more efficient than the words I might once have used to express the same ideas. This shift in the nature of communications will have a substantial effect on culture, business and politics. It’s already reshaping entire industries from advertising to journalism to fashion. It’s powering political campaigns, and will help decide elections. It’s changing the American approach to foreign diplomacy. It’s redefining art and our relationship with the cultural institutions that embody it.
很大程度上，這些照片並不是爲了記錄某個場景，而是已經變成了一種“視覺速記”，用來表達過去我可能需要文字表達才更有效、更有共鳴的情緒。這種交流方式的變化將對文化、商業和政治都產生重大影響。它已經從根本上改變了從廣告到媒體和時尚等很多行業的風貌。它甚至能影響政治宣傳，有可能影響選舉的結果。它也正在改變美國的外交模式。它還重新定義了藝術，並且影響了我們與文化藝術機構的關係。

Those who embrace this shift early have the opportunity to amass influence in their fields and gain power among their peers. How, you ask? Read on. In this month’s series, Picture This, I plan to chronicle the stories of the people and businesses enabling and evolving new forms of visual literacy. I will write about the toolmakers—the entrepreneurs attending the LDV Vision Summit June 4 in New York, where they’ll discuss computer vision and trends in communications technology. I will introduce you to the communicators—the artists like Mississippi-based Melissa Vincent who are building hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, and discovering new ways of telling stories in the process. And I will shed light on the decoders like Brian Kennedy, the curator at the Toledo Art Museum, who has developed a curriculum for visual literacy.
那些最早擁抱這種轉變的人將有機會在他們各自的領域裏造成重大的影響，同時在競爭中獲得優勢。如果想知道爲什麼，請繼續閱讀本系列文章。在本月的系列專題《拍照吧》（Picture This）中，我將爲大家介紹一些創造和發展了新的“視覺語言”形式的人和企業。首先我會介紹一些製造工具的人——比如參加了今年6月4日在紐約舉辦的LDV視覺峯會的人，他們在會上探討了計算機禮堂與溝通技術的發展趨勢；然後我會介紹一些用視覺溝通的人——比如來自密西西比的梅麗莎o文森特，她在Instagram上已經有了幾十萬名粉絲，她還在這個過程中發現了一些講故事的新方法。另外我還將介紹一些解開視覺語言密碼的人，比如托萊多美術館館長布萊恩o肯尼迪，他專門開設了一門視覺語言課程。

The future belongs to the visually literate. May you be among them.
未來掌握在懂得視覺語言的人手中，希望你也是其中一個。