Photographs and Portraits
The photographs and portraits in the world of wizards are not stationary like in the Muggle world. They move around within the frame and from one portrait to another, and are also able to talk. A portrait of the Fat Lady is used in Hogwarts to cover the door to the Gryffindor common room and opens only when she is given the password. Also, there are various paintings of old Headmasters and Headmistresses of Hogwarts in Dumbledore's office, and he is shown to be in discussion with them from time to time. He also uses the portrait of Phineas Nigellus, Sirius Black's great grandfather, to communicate with Sirius and to keep a watch at the Order's Headquarters through another portrait of Phineas in the house. The headmaster portraits are special, not simply due to the fact that they appear in them because of their death. The reason for this is that part of their soul stays behind in their portrait.
Read more about this topic: Magical Objects In Harry Potter
Famous quotes containing the words photographs and/or portraits:
“A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it—by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can’t hear yourself speak.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)