How do you illustrate the absence of God?
Post categories: iPlayer
| 12:44 UK time, Thursday, 12 March 2009
Finding images for the more abstract radio programming on 91Èȱ¬i Player is a headache. For the Radio 4 programme Crave for Less the only information at my team's disposal is:
Richard Holloway searches for the reality of God's presence in absence.
Our usual fallback for religious programming that we have difficulty finding images for is candles, lots and lots of candles. We occasionally throw in a good sunset too but neither of these approaches seemed right for the description above.
So what did we go for? We mulled over the possibilities of using eerily beautiful space images, we thought about churches, collars, mass prayer, none of which I was comfortable with as none screamed God (or His absence) at me. Then it hit me, why should I try and put a face on the Almighty when Michelangelo had already done it for me in the Sistine Chapel. Whether you believe or not, his rendition of God in the Creation of Adam is the most instantly recognisable face of God and suited this programme nicely.
What I love about this image is that it is a fresco, a painted work that helps break up the rows and rows of presenter headshots which appear particularly for iPlayer Radio (we have to use so many head shots that when displayed on the iPlayer interface the display can have a whiff of a Crimewatch line-up about it. I am, with the picture editors on the bbc.co.uk homepage, commissioning more and more illustrations to bring variety and a bit of depth to our radio imagery - this image (Steph von Reiswitz) for the Talented Mr Ripley on Radio 4 is one of a series we have commissioned for this exact purpose.
Ashley Stewart Noble is Senior Content Producer, 91Èȱ¬ Online, 91Èȱ¬ Future Media & Technology.
Comment number 1.
At 12th Mar 2009, mrFunction wrote:Wish I'd know, Ashley. I have some great photos of a church with no god in it, but an awfully large Darwinian whale:
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Comment number 2.
At 12th Mar 2009, _Ewan_ wrote:Surely for the absence of god, the famous fresco of the Flying Spaghetti Monster would have been more appropriate?
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Comment number 3.
At 12th Mar 2009, chriskeene wrote:The first comment above (from mrFunction) seems like a good idea. Put out program titles and any blurb, and let users submit photos (which they have the rights to submit) to be used for that show.
Cheap to do, and gets users involved, and brings up coming programs to people's attention.
Chris
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Comment number 4.
At 12th Mar 2009, Up Your Ego wrote:I was hunting for a god without god image a couple of years ago and ended up going down the beach and writing the word God with a ? in the sand and taking a photo of that.
Unfortunately the question mark didn't show up very well and it ended up looking overly religious still.
Oh well :)
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Comment number 5.
At 13th Mar 2009, Whisky wrote:Oh, come on Ashley, you of all people should have been able to come up with the perfect picture to visualise the absence of God...
What was wrong with a picture of a Babel Fish?
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