The camera makes reality atomic, manageable, and opaque. It is a view of the
world which denies interconnectedness, continuity, but which confers on each
moment the character of a mystery. Any photograph has multiple meanings; indeed,
to see something in the form of a photograph is to encounter a potential object
of fascination. The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: “There
is the surface. Now think—or rather feel, intuit —what is beyond it, what the
reality must be like if it looks this way.” Photographs, which cannot themselves
explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and
fantasy.Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the
camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from
not accepting the world as it looks. All possibility of understanding is rooted
in the ability to say no. Strictly speaking, one never understands anything from
a photograph.
