photos, oil paintings, ghosts, mortality, consciousness, etc.

[scoutmom21113]

No: HPFGUIDX 71702

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "madeyemood" <nansense at c...> 
wrote:
> Does anyone care to flesh out these various levels consciousness?
<snip>
> Do these instances depict different levels of consciousness that 
the reader is supposed to be able to flesh out?
> 
<snip> 
> How do the past headmasters live on in their oil paintings? how 
many paintings can they be conscious in simultaneously? How 
vulnerable are they to attack?
> What about the oil paintings at Hogwarts? Are these subjects more 
or less alive than ghosts?
> Could Sirius have killed the Fat Lady by slicing her to ribbons if 
she hadn't fleed the picture?
> 
> "madeyemood"

I've been pondering something similar - it seems that the subjects of 
paintings can talk, but not the subjects of photographs.  Could it be 
because the painter captures the "essence" of the person, but the 
photographs only record the current activity the way digital cameras 
can take mini-videos?

Ravenclaw Bookworm