In photography, images can have multiple meanings depending on who’s interpreting it. Often times this leads to a miscommunication between the reality of the image and the subject itself. For example, when you look at an image of a baby bird on a tree, the image is communicating just that (a baby bird on a tree branch) but when focusing on the subject, a story develops. One may start to make connections, references and interpretations. An individual can easily say “it’s a baby bird lost trying to find its mother” or one can say “it’s a baby bird waiting for it’s food to arrive”. There are countless ways to convey an image which explains the difference between a photograph holistically and the subject of the image. According to the the short text, a photograph is considered more significant than the subject because the image as a whole is what the reality is. When a human is out in nature they see things just as they are. Directing attention to a subject manipulates reality resulting in false accusations of what is really happening. A photograph is displays reality, the subject is displaying a story.
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Interpretation is a sticky issue. And one that plagues photography.
The text by Szarkowski wasn’t exactly about interpretation. It was about the relationship of the image to the thing that was photographed and how the photographer’s choices influence how we as the viewers of the photograph think about the thing that was photographed. He also states that the photograph can become more important than the thing that is photographed because it is what is remembered.