The photo-envelope
Hi everybody, dear Typospherians, here is a first tentative specimen of a new sort of typecast. I call it the photo-envelope as the digital photographic image literarily envelopes the typewritten text, that only becomes legible when the viewer uses the zoom function in his software. The text is behind a optical horizon and zooming in onto a detail unwraps the ‘letter(s)’, as in opening an envelope.
Like in the case of mail-art, the photo-envelope offers the possibility to use the atmosphere and elements of the picture in combination with the text. I imagine a photo of a group of people in a party setting, and one of the women has a sheet of paper with a typewritten text taped onto her back. They are raising their glasses, laughing, but ignoring the camera. The text is about how a group of friends gathers and seems to surround the empty spot of a friend who is absent (because of a divorce, a journey or death).
I imagine the use of coloured paper, as camouflage, to better combine the surfaces in the image with the text. Or a text written on a meters long ribbon, taped to the wall of a room. That would make the zooming in and scrolling quite exciting, a journey through the image.
The text can function as an embedded caption, but also as a voice over, speaking about people and situations that are not in the picture, but blend with the image in a meaningful way. That’s what I hope to have done in my first experiment.
The second reason I like this form of typecast, is that it can be used quite spontaneously. Staying in a friend’s house, you are struck by the view. You write a little text about how it reminds you of somewhere else for example, you than tape the typoscript onto the windowpane and photograph the view with the text in it. Just send/upload the picture. I have already used the photo-envelope to send letters to friends.
I know that by using In-Design, -inserting a digital text into a photo and saving the image as a pdf-, you can hide perfectly legible text in extremely small details, but I like the use of analogue text and the physical, direct feel of this method. It seems to capture the kind of static or interference that we call ‘personal’ better.
So, zoom in to read. Hopefully you feel a strong desire to zoom out as soon as you’ve finished reading, to see how your view of the image has changed by unwrapping this powerful detail.
