Notice the Unnoticed

"I hope one day I'll always be able to hear what's meant, not just listen to what's said."

    Being introduced to The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui was driven by tons of visual analyzing, much more than the average person probably would for a graphic novel. Motifs appear again and again and again, and now suddenly we have to keep our eyes open for when they show themselves.

    Comics carry their details and impact through their visual freedom. Graphic weight (how much attention a visual element attracts) plays a key role in all of this, because giving the viewer that advantage of seeing a clear detail gives them something to build off of. But what comes next? Is that all that there is, to just be on the lookout for the obvious signs that stick out? Well, this is exactly how I used to think.

A picture I took in the midst of a large crowd on the
 Canada riverside as a man looks silently to the US.

    I picked up photography as a hobby around a year ago hoping to achieve the same feeling I got from my father's photography. It seemed simple in the way where you'd walk around somewhere, find something cool, snap a picture, and be on your way. Although, it eventually became apparent that the real good shots often presented themselves as subtly as possible, as if they were intentionally hiding from you--waiting for someone to finally notice. This forced me to move slower, think slower, and look further. Reading between the lines became the only goal.

    The Art of Noticing

    Throughout the past year, I've tried my best to adopt this ideology, living fast enough to see the picture, but slow enough to acknowledge the details. So, reading The Best We Could Do really brought that idea back to me, because not every important detail was colored dark. Instead, they were white, grey, or even orange. The simplicity and consistency in the color palette of this book made it even harder to see what's often unnoticed, but maybe always slowing down to notice them is how it ought to be.