tactile & tantalizing
Have you ever seen a photograph that has not only brought back memories of a summer forest after rain, but actually made you smell it? Or one that, like a large seashell, has brought the sound of the ocean to your ear; or one that has made your mouth water? When a picture gives me that experience, I almost feel like it surpasses its task as a photograph. What fantastic things our brains can do! Not only are we able to translate a two-dimensional photograph into a three-dimensional scene, face, detail full of depth and colour, but at times, we can even experience things through our other senses, without any input. It always impresses and surprises me.
Because I like impressing myself, I sometimes try to do exactly that: evoke a non-visual sensation through a picture. In this post, I’ve gathered a few photos which awaken my sense of touch – images that tickle my fingertips. Let’s see if it works for you, too!
Wet sand on a beach in Essaouira, Morocco. Imagine burying your hand into the coldness of it…
A cactus – be careful when you stroke that one!
Toad skin. On a dead toad. It may not be nicer per se, but perhaps healthier, to only have an imagined sensation of this one… Very bumpy!
Lizard skin? No, rose petals on an early winter morning.
The beautiful curves of a dune in Erg Chegaga, Morocco. Don’t you just want to trace your finger along that perfect line?
Hard as steel or soft and dynamic as the Baltic waves off the coast of Gotland, Sweden.
In all honesty, the only reason I made this blog post was because I really like the word tactile. Enjoy all your senses!
(speaking of senses – there’s a fantastic project, which was started in Finland, to create 3D-models of famous works of art to enable blind and visually impaired people to experience them. It’s called Unseen Art, and on top of being a great idea, it’s open-source and non-profit. I have no connection to it, I just think it’s wonderful. They’ve already re-created the Mona Lisa!)
alternative viewpoints 
Those photos did it for me – especially the cactus. I winced remembering when I accidentally stuck my hand in a cactus and was rewarded with about 50 barbs.
Ugh, sounds annoying and painful! The cactus in the photo actually gave me a couple of barbs, too – of the minuscule, basically invisible kind…
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