如今文字生命力弱化 未来会拍照者得天下

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.
像许多主流的美国人一样，我在1999年把我拍摄的第一张数码照片上传到了一个叫Shutterfly的网站上。2005年，我又是较早一批注册Facebook的人，不过直到三年后，我的家人朋友才纷纷开始使用这项服务，让它成了我的一个可靠的交流平台。2007年，乔布斯推出了把能手机变成相机的划时代产品iPhone，我也在2007年秋天买了一部。

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.
现在到了2014年，我光是上个月就拍了500多张照片，包括每天早上遛狗的照片、假期与家人一起做饭的照片、采访时的照片、拍到手机里的名片、我想买的一条裙子的标签、我想去超市里买的一种牛奶，等等。另外还有一张自拍，是我在牙科诊所里皱着眉头的表情，我把它发给了我的搭档，表明我多讨厌去看牙。

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，这些照片并不是为了记录某个场景，而是已经变成了一种“视觉速记”，用来表达过去我可能需要文字表达才更有效、更有共鸣的情绪。这种交流方式的变化将对文化、商业和政治都产生重大影响。它已经从根本上改变了从广告到媒体和时尚等很多行业的风貌。它甚至能影响政治宣传，有可能影响选举的结果。它也正在改变美国的外交模式。它还重新定义了艺术，并且影响了我们与文化艺术机构的关系。

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.
那些最早拥抱这种转变的人将有机会在他们各自的领域里造成重大的影响，同时在竞争中获得优势。如果想知道为什么，请继续阅读本系列文章。在本月的系列专题《拍照吧》（Picture This）中，我将为大家介绍一些创造和发展了新的“视觉语言”形式的人和企业。首先我会介绍一些制造工具的人——比如参加了今年6月4日在纽约举办的LDV视觉峰会的人，他们在会上探讨了计算机礼堂与沟通技术的发展趋势；然后我会介绍一些用视觉沟通的人——比如来自密西西比的梅丽莎o文森特，她在Instagram上已经有了几十万名粉丝，她还在这个过程中发现了一些讲故事的新方法。另外我还将介绍一些解开视觉语言密码的人，比如托莱多美术馆馆长布莱恩o肯尼迪，他专门开设了一门视觉语言课程。

The future belongs to the visually literate. May you be among them.
未来掌握在懂得视觉语言的人手中，希望你也是其中一个。