Still Photography Versus Videography

Living our photographies, ƒ/22, 35mm, fagnes on flickr

Discussing with strangers in the train this is often an opportunity for a new blog post. The main issue I have with new comers in photography (read people buying a camera), they usually focus on technical aspect and not on the act of photography. But sometime, I have interesting questions and especially this one: "Do you think there is a real difference between taking pictures or videos?"

This question was in my head for the past days... Photography is very different of a video. Photography is the ability to stop time at an instant. To create a new interpretation of an instant and build a new timeline in your surrounding environment. Some still photography is just so intemporal that you cannot even define when it was taken. I feel videography as ensuring a continum where you extend time where you don't keep control of the time like in still photography.

While searching in my archive, I found a series taken in the Virton train station. Every picture is a moment but it looks like a movie. The paradox if you add all the pictures all together, this is like a video which is not.Maybe the impression is linked on how you dream, it seems you have the impression of each steps, these steps are just a moment of our lives.

43 still pictures of a train passing who passes...