What do you see in this image?
When I opened the State Library of NSW journal atmitchell, (Vol 4, No. 1, March 2008) this morning, I saw crocheted mittens first. Then I wondered who had made him the mittens and did she know how filthy they were?
I was looking at the picture through the eyes of a crafter and one who is well acquainted with the knitted and crocheted form. To me, the picture is of a bloke holding a penguin with mittened hands, and those mittens look like home-crafted crochet to me.
Someone else looking at the picture would describe it differently. A geologist might see the rocks as the primary subject of the photo, the man’s partner might see it as a portrait of his/her lover, an ornithologist might think it a very fine photo of a particular type of penguin, someone else would see the parka and it’s metal snaps and hood. A hairdresser might see the style of “do” and the recent beardage.
Because indexing images is part of what I do, and so I could justify researching and writing a blog post on work time, I thought I’d take a look at how the Mitchell Library described the image.
Wow, they describe it as “1930. J.F. Ivanec, geologist, with a rock-hopper penguin” and no where in the catalogue record is there a reference to the mittens, their style etc. So apart from finding out that my latest crush visited the Antarctic in 1930 and is most likely dead now (another doomed relationship *sigh*), the person who described the image didn’t think the clothing or hair was important or know anything about the rocks behind.
As I will point out when using this in a training session, someone interested in the history, design and use of hand-crafts, and crochet in particular, would not find this image in a search of the database. What other evidence are we missing out on because we see what we know and don’t describe what is there?
When I opened the State Library of NSW journal atmitchell, (Vol 4, No. 1, March 2008) this morning, I saw crocheted mittens first. Then I wondered who had made him the mittens and did she know how filthy they were?
I was looking at the picture through the eyes of a crafter and one who is well acquainted with the knitted and crocheted form. To me, the picture is of a bloke holding a penguin with mittened hands, and those mittens look like home-crafted crochet to me.
Someone else looking at the picture would describe it differently. A geologist might see the rocks as the primary subject of the photo, the man’s partner might see it as a portrait of his/her lover, an ornithologist might think it a very fine photo of a particular type of penguin, someone else would see the parka and it’s metal snaps and hood. A hairdresser might see the style of “do” and the recent beardage.
Because indexing images is part of what I do, and so I could justify researching and writing a blog post on work time, I thought I’d take a look at how the Mitchell Library described the image.
Wow, they describe it as “1930. J.F. Ivanec, geologist, with a rock-hopper penguin” and no where in the catalogue record is there a reference to the mittens, their style etc. So apart from finding out that my latest crush visited the Antarctic in 1930 and is most likely dead now (another doomed relationship *sigh*), the person who described the image didn’t think the clothing or hair was important or know anything about the rocks behind.
As I will point out when using this in a training session, someone interested in the history, design and use of hand-crafts, and crochet in particular, would not find this image in a search of the database. What other evidence are we missing out on because we see what we know and don’t describe what is there?
However, I don't think I need to explain that when this popped into view on Ravelry last night, I did NOT see a banana cosy.
