Over the years, I have worked in writing, audio and video.
I know how a voice can accompany someone through a commute, and how video can pull a person into a scene within seconds. Now, in AI product work, I deal with another medium: a user says something, a system responds, and the content changes direction through interaction.
Yet when I want to leave something considered and lasting, I often return to image and text.
Not because they are new, or because they are easy. They can seem almost too ordinary: one photograph, a few paragraphs, no autoplay and no sound to manufacture emotion.
It is this quietness that I like.
A medium decides how we spend time together
Audio creates a strong sense of company.
A person can listen while walking, driving or tidying a room. Good audio does not need to seize attention every second. It moves alongside life, like another person nearby.
Video draws power from simultaneity. People, movement, sound, captions and rhythm arrive together. An atmosphere that is difficult to describe can be understood quickly in a single shot. Video is good at showing change and at helping strangers form a first impression.
Both media, however, impose a stronger sequence of time. The work moves from beginning to end, and the creator largely determines when the audience sees something and how long they stay with it.
Image and text return part of that time to the reader.
They can scan, or remain with one sentence. They can look at the photograph first, then return to the opening. They can reopen the page days later and find a detail they missed. Reading is not only following. It lets each person choose a pace of entry.
The photograph lets life appear; the words explain why I noticed it
When I made work for Sweet Particle, I liked looking for concrete things in a city.
It might be a piece of light on an old building, a shop that preserved an earlier structure, or a street that reveals itself only after you walk into it. The photograph keeps the moment. The writing then answers slower questions: why did I stop here, what does it have to do with the city, and how might someone else enter the experience?
With only a photograph, the feeling can stop at “beautiful.” With only words, much of the texture becomes abstract.
Together, they preserve both the scene and the judgment. They do not need to create a climax in the first few seconds. An ordinary detail can become important gradually.
This is also why I wanted both essays and photographs on my personal site. A résumé can show what I have done. Projects can show how I solve problems. Photographs and essays reveal another part of me that is harder to summarize: what attracts my attention, how I arrange information and what I am willing to spend time looking at.
Choosing image and text does not make them right for everything
If the essence of something is movement, sound or live change, video is more accurate. If the work needs to accompany someone for a long time, audio may be kinder than a screen. If a user needs to find their own answer through questions, a conversational product offers something neither image nor text can provide.
There is no hierarchy of media. The question is what relationship we want to create.
I do not like turning every idea into video simply because a platform rewards it. Some ideas need their process to be seen; some feelings are better read quietly. Choosing image and text is not a refusal of livelier forms. It is an acknowledgment that attention can be treated differently.
As generating audio, video and writing becomes easier, choosing a form becomes more of a judgment. What must be heard? What should be seen? What deserves to let the reader control the pace?
I still choose image and text because they give the creator room to compose and the reader room to move.
We can meet on the same page without having to travel through it at the same speed.