moving pictures ... paintings vs. photos

[rja.carnegie at excite.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 19655

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Tamfiiris <tamf at m...> wrote:
> Doreen Rich wrote:
> 
> > Does it specifically *say* somewhere in the books or in a JKR
> > discussion, that *only* paintings' subjects can move about, from
> > painting to painting? Does it *say* that photo subjects can not move
> > from photo to photo, or from photo to painting? Or are we just to
> > assume, since only the paintings' subjects have done it so far, that
> > the photos' subjects can not? I am really curious about this one.
> 
> well, i don't have any concrete evidence, sorry. but i think we can
> assume that photos mainly don't move around much, snapshots of the
> moment as they are. they didn't seem to have done so in Harry's photo
> album of his parents, for example. i assume more 'soul' or magic
> substance has gone into creating the paintings, giving them more life
> and character.

And there are Colin Creevey's photographs (CS chapter 6), which are
just ordinary Muggle snapshots until (so a room-mate tells him) he
develops them in special potion.  I suppose that's hearsay and not
necessarily true...

Paintings, if wizards create them in more or less the usual way,
do take more of the model's time and also the artist's attention -
to some extent they're a work of the artist's imagination.
So they might reasonably have more soul or more magic in?

Robert Carnegie
Glasgow, Scotland

"I read them all when I was seven and I hated them" - unnamed American
office worker on the Harry Potter books (www.dilbert.com, List of
Stupid Things Overheard)