Viewing as a photographer, creating photos for your viewers

Wouter Willemse · May 31, 2012

Not really an original subject, but something that is frequently touched upon in threads here: being a viewer, versus being a photographer.

In my own experience, my viewing of photos (and paintings too) changed drastically as I've been more and more involved in photography. Aaprt from recognising the techniques applies, the skills involved - also reading a message, seeing subtleties in an image - I have the idea my eye for that became much sharper. I consider it a happy collateral damage from trying to create better photos myself - I am more open and more driven to study the work of others, and recognise more in it.

So I can't really distinguish clearly between "me, the viewer" and "me, the photographer" because it's all just me, and it slides from one end to the other.

At the same time, there is still a considerable difference in being able to "embed" a message, versus being able to read a message. Apart from the latter being much easier usually (to me anyway), but there is a second point there, maybe, where I'm wondering about.

Do you feel that in "being a viewer" you have more freedom and ease to have a really personal reading and approach, and take your own cultural background, beliefs, experiences etc. into how you perceive a work?

And as a photographer, do you instead try to consider how the "median" viewer will perceive your message? A much greater call on the empathy, do you try to have a more wider appeal by not including too specifically your own background, beliefs, experiences etc.? Is there a seeming difference between being a viewer or a creator in terms of empathy needed, of actually understanding communication, of choosing relatively safe paths to express something? In trying to express yourself, do you feel restrained by others in a "fear" of being misunderstood?

Julie H · May 31, 2012

Wouter, the "viewer" sees what's there. The photographer sees what's there AND what he experienced beyond what he saw. At the time of the shoot, it's all experience. It's my opinion that the most absolutely necessary, number-one skill that a good photographer must have is the ability to sort "the viewer" out of the fullness of his experience at the time of the shoot. In addition to seeing, he's hearing, smelling, skin-feeling, moving, reacting, etc. etc [including not-seeing-everything]. Knowing, out of all that, what "the viewer" (including himself) will get; that's what -- that is ALL that -- will be in the photograph.

So, to me the huge, key, all-important difference is in being able to "be" the viewer *while* you are creating. Beyond that, what's in the picture is what's in the picture. You (the creator/photographer) are the only one who has reason to be confused -- because of memory, because of the fullness of your own being-there experience.

Norma Desmond · May 31, 2012

<<<do you try to have a more wider appeal by not including too specifically your own background, beliefs, experiences etc.?>>>

I do include my own background, beliefs, and experience. I appreciate photos that feel personal. I think what happens with the personal is a sense of empathy. I may not always understand or empathize with the particular situations or feelings being expressed, but I can usually empathize with their being so personal. That someone can dig down and give me an intimate part of themselves or of their subject or just give me an intimate photo touches me, even if I don't quite "get" it, sometimes especially if I don't quite "get" it. So, for me, the deeply personal sort of automatically becomes universal.

<<<Do you feel that in "being a viewer" you have more freedom and ease to have a really personal reading and approach,>>>

Yes and no. There is a freedom in being a viewer. Julie hit upon that . . . freedom from what actually happened, which the photographer will be privy to. Yet the photographer learns to free himself from the actual as well, to whatever extent he chooses and can, as he creates his virtual world of the photograph. But, as a viewer, I don't take my part any more lightly than I do as a photographer. Viewers can learn, evolve, study, know technique, style, symbolism, historical context, influences, etc. They don't have to, just as every person with a camera doesn't have to. But it often does make a difference in the photo-making and photo-viewing experience.

_______________________________

I do think of photographs as using a language, as communicative, though not as literally as words. Just as when I'm talking to people I'm not fussing over every word -- not pre-thinking every metaphor or simile, every idiomatic expression or use of alliteration or onomatopoeia -- I want there to be some kind of sharing. I usually have a more specific intention when communicating with words. The kind of sharing that takes place with photos is different. Someone who communicates well verbally has all those tricks I mentioned up their sleeve, ready to use. Good photographers do, too. They don't get mired in communication details throughout the process, but they do things to prepare themselves to be more or less instinctual about their photos and how they might reach out to a viewer.

Wouter Willemse · May 31, 2012

Good points. Yes, the liberty of being a not-upfront-informed viewer usually gives me more of a sense of liberty to dive in, but sometimes also give a strange false sense of being invasive into something personal that isn't mine to be in. The latter is just a split-second reaction, nothing rational and it can even be completely misplaced.

Picking up two things... Julie :

So, to me the huge, key, all-important difference is in being able to "be" the viewer *while* you are creating.

</blockquote>

Fred:

They don't get mired in communication details throughout the process, but they do things to prepare themselves to be more or less instinctual about their photos and how they might reach out to a viewer.

</blockquote>

Now this speaks of a sort of understanding, empathy... something I am struggling with in understanding whether I manage to communicate in a photo or not, and how effective. I think you both hit upon the point where my OP got born. Language is a large part of my work; writing for a (very) large audience, carefully addressing the lowest common denominator. Selecting the right wording is quite key to it. It's not something that comes naturally to me, it properly is work. Rather than a writer, I am supposed to be more or less an expert on what I write, and what happens is that many factor are obvious to me, which may not at all be obvious to the intended audience (*). Now it's this kind of assumptions that tend to worry me most when I do try to express something with a photo.

Probably I drag these thoughts into my photography a bit too much (too much wondering "but what do I want to say here?"). But it's the understanding who the audience is, and understanding what they pick up - maybe the key is getting solid feedback from somebody whose viewing skills you can trust?

____

Maybe the last question in my first post is a seperate one ("In trying to express yourself, do you feel restrained by others in a "fear" of being misunderstood?"), but it's a collateral thought that fascinates me.

____

(*) For work, luckily for my audience, an editor brings my words into shape. Sometimes wish I could have that here as well :-)

luis_g · May 31, 2012

JH - "Wouter, the "viewer" sees what's there. The photographer sees what's there AND what he experienced beyond what he saw."

All the viewer can see is what is "there". But in reality, he does not. Nor does the photographer see what's "there", though I agree with the latter half of that second sentence. Neither viewer or photographer see everything that is either in the print or within the frame at the time of exposure. Both inject things that are already in their heads (and culture) into the image, and the lens merrily hoovers in things that the photographer did not see and sometimes does not see in the print, but an astute viewer might.

I do not make myself my own imaginary viewer, because (putting on itchy Kevlar jockstrap) I am not a normal viewer by virtue of experience.

sjmurray · May 31, 2012

Over the years (many years!) I have been amazed at what other viewers see in my photos. Things I would never have guessed. I have come to believe that we are often seeing entirely different photographs, because, in a sense, as Luis has stated: "both inject things that are already in their heads." I can only take photographs that grab me in that ever fleeting moment, before conscious analysis even. I just "know" this is what I want. If someone else likes it later, I assume they are responding to something in it that moves them too, but I gave up long ago on what that would be or why. When I look at another person's photo, I realize I am seeing it through my own "thick" and complex mental filter, making my own perception of it quite personal and unique.

lex_jenkins · May 31, 2012

As a photographer, I'd like to claim that I still adhere to the Garry Winogrand philosophy: I take photographs to see how things look in photographs.

That deceptively simple philosophy appeals to be for the same reason it's interesting to hear how different people who shared a common experience differ in their perceptions and memories of the same experience.

While I still hold to that basic philosophy for much of my own photography - and my perceptions of much of the photography of others - I must admit to also giving equal credence to the concept of memetics.

Some images do mean things, very specific - if complex - and narrowly defined things, per the consensus of the viewers who participate in promoting those images to meme status. These images and photographs, even without accompanying captions, immediately imply - at least to the cognescenti - messages, ideas and concepts. Often these messages are a facile sort of irony, but they're an affirmation of the power of semiotics. The "Ceiling Cat" snapshot had no meaning until such meaning was created by the consensus of viewers. Roger Ballen *seems* to intend certain messages in his photographs and repeated themes, but while we may not be able to adequately interpret his intentions, the overwhelming force of memetics imposed an interpretation on one of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/apr/06/roger-ballen-photographer">his most recognized photos</a> (Dresie and Casie, Twins, Western Transval, 1993).

From that perspective, social satire and implied messages in shared imagery have surpassed the intentions of Hogarth and Bruegel and their savviest interpreters, and evolved, for better or worse, beyond truth based in fact to a kind of truth based in the success of a memetic image.

If an image succeeds in capturing the imagination of viewers with a consensus about the message as imposed by the viewers - regardless of the creator's intentions - then it doesn't really matter what the photographer or artist intended about perceptions of his or her own work. Well, it matters, sure. But the artist's wishes and intentions may be overruled by the overwhelming force of viewer consensus.

AlanKlein · May 31, 2012

Fascinating question Wouter. I was however a little confused by your original point. When you look at other photographers' pictures, you're not getting into the viewer's mind but rather the other photographers' minds. If you want to photograph to favor what's in the viewers' minds, look at the result of photo contests or what they purchase.

Secondly, how and what you photograph may determine how you go about photographing. If you're a wedding or people photographer, than your customer's concerns will have greater importance as Fred says than let's say landscape photographers concerns with "catching the light". In landscape, like Julie says, the shooter' tries to capture what he "sees" there, it's beauty, sense of awe, graphic purity, etc.. The viewer may like it or not. but the shooter is less effected by the eventual viewer. Of course even here, the shooter may go after specific shots. For example, shooting the Everglades to sell pictures in stores in south Florida. Or shooting certain colors of the landscape to complement the decor of a room to be sold to interior decorators.

My own preference for landscape is to shoot what I see as a beautiful or interesting scene. I only can hope others enjoy what I tried to capture as well. When I shoot family, than I'm more concerned that the eventual picture will be liked by the person I shot. I wouldn't want to inadvertently hurt his or her feelings with my shot, something I think I fail at too often. People are very sensitive to photos of themselves. Photoshop helps in this regard. So does the trash bin.

Julie H · June 1, 2012

Wouter, you said, "... the liberty of being a not-upfront-informed viewer usually gives me more of a sense of liberty to dive in, but sometimes also give a strange false sense of being invasive into something personal that isn't mine to be in." That's an interesting tangent and I think I know what you mean. Think, historically of the uproar created by the viewer's confusion at seeing Courbet's (? I hope I'm getting the artist right; I have a terrible memory for names) picture of two clothed modern day men breakfasting with two nude/naked (therein was the confusion) women in a modern (of that time) park. Or Manet's famous Olympia, where the clearly modern woman stares frankly at the viewer, making it *very* clear that she is not Venus, and don't you forget it. Both pictures have become so familiar to us that it's hard to believe the shock and confusion they aroused by wobbling between what/where/who their viewer was supposed to "find" him or herself.

In photography, for me, Nan Goldin's big book, The Devil's Playground falls into this neither-fish-nor-fowl abyss. You probably know her famous previous books that are explorations of her own intimate, personal life. In contrast, in The Devil's Playground, she *seems* (<< note my confusion) to be trying to explore sexuality in general. But, to me (<< more confusion), she ends up being neither personal explorer of her own world, nor intrepid explorer of other worlds. For example, she has a series of pictures of heterosex, start to finish, then a series of gay sex, start to finish. I don't see the point. I don't feel that Goldin brings me anything beyond bodies having sex in what seems to be normal, if well-lit emotional and physical conditions. Looking at them, I get that "invasive" feeling that Wouter mentions. Unlike Goldin's prior work, I am unsure that she really belongs (literally, as well as conceptually) where she is -- flat-side, looking down on these acts that -- why am I seeing this?

In contrast, just to add a dimension of viewer-stance, I add this quote about and (partially) from Sally Mann about photographing her husband primarily for her book Proud Flesh:

"Mann looks through her lens at a body that she has known intimately for four decades, one that is almost as familiar to her as her own limbs and torso. But, she says, this is not about eroticism or fantasy: "The studio is not the same as our bedroom. I look away while he undresses.""

</blockquote>

With the last Goldin book, I'm not sure if I look away or not. Where am I? If I (via Goldin) feel at home (as in her earlier work) than I feel that. If I'm doing an exploration of more abstract or conceptual responses, then Mann's approach puts me clearly into "position." But Goldin's Devil's Playground, to me, doesn't "put" me anywhere. I feel like Goldin herself is in transition in her work (some of the stuff in this book is radically different from both her earlier work and what I'm complaining about here, and I find those pictures to be both exciting and convincing).

Wouter Willemse · June 1, 2012

Luis, Steve, I agree with your notions on viewing photos. There is a considerable freedom there, but I'd argue it's all freedom. Much of these unique personal qualities we bring in as a viewer, are not so unique shared things. Symbols, colours - as a photographer you can use them effectively to address a specific audience and guide them towards your message. Maybe not entirely, but it's not a fully disconnected system either.

Lex' mentioning of the consensus is an important thing here, I think. The consensus may be reached for a photo, and its implied message shared among many. But that consensus can be very predictably there - by virtue of the photographer.

Now that's a bit the question I am still toying with: in integrating enough clues to have this shared, common perception, to guide your viewer into a somewhat predictable response - how much does that hinder your personal creativity? Does it still feel as a personal expression?

(In case it's useful as to what I'm getting at: I've been looking a lot at documentary work recently, and good narrative photos leave clues that can be picked up by a wider audience. The photographer put them there, one way or another, to get the storytelling going. This is what's been raising the question for me. I guess I am mostly asking for experiences here, because I doubt any 2 photographers will have the same response and ideas.)

____

Alan, I did not really consider commercial work, but for commercial work, you're obviously right. It does bring about a bit the same mind-set, though. In delivering what the customer wants, how much can you still be yourself? Do the requirements stiffle, or enable?

___

Julie, something in your post is tingling in my brain, but the words won't come yet - I get back on it, once I can actually create a phrase out of it.

Norma Desmond · June 1, 2012

<<<Now that's a bit the question I am still toying with: in integrating enough clues to have this shared, common perception, to guide your viewer into a somewhat predictable response - how much does that hinder your personal creativity?>>>

It could, but doesn't have to. If you become any sort of a slave to "the response," you could be in trouble creatively. But if you consider it, are aware of it, seek to communicate, etc. you can do that without undermining, and you may often actually expand, your creativity. Creativity, IMO, is not about limitlessness, though creativity is unbounded. Many great creators have all kinds of limits placed on them and place all kinds of limits on themselves. Michelangelo had to stick to the contours and back-breaking exercise of working on a ceiling! Hitchcock arbitrarily decided to do Rope in real time and to have it appear to be one continuous shot. That's a limit that suited his creativity, a creative sense which I consider pretty unbounded in the scheme of things. He worked rigorously, used story boards extensively, planned to the most minute detail, and none of this hampered his creative edge.

Your wanting to say something and wanting to make sure it's heard is a goal and desire you have. There are any number of ways you can go about doing that. Your photos, because it's probably in the nature of photos, will still have ambiguities about them and you won't be able to control responses completely. It's a matter of degree. You will simply seek a more determined outcome than other photographers, who have something less specific to get across or who want to allow more ambiguity.

The worst thing to do would be to let this thing called "creativity" get in the way of your doing what you want to do or communicating what you want to communicate.

Norma Desmond · June 1, 2012

Wouter, just wanted to add that I think there's a difference between wanting or needing to please an audience (which is not always a negative, by the way) and wanting to communicate something or be able to elicit a certain kind of response. There's even a difference between the latter two. Having in mind what you want to communicate is one thing. And you may very well communicate it but you still might get an unexpected response. A viewer might very well understand you but react very differently from you to a subject or your handling of a subject.

There's also a difference -- creatively, conceptually, and aesthetically -- between, on the one hand, trying to anticipate the reaction of a viewer and tailoring your photo to try to get a particular reaction or type of reaction, and on the other hand tailoring your work to meet the expectations or morality of your viewers.

Julie H · June 2, 2012

"There's also a difference -- creatively, conceptually, and aesthetically -- between, on the one hand, trying to anticipate the reaction of a viewer and tailoring your photo to try to get a particular reaction or type of reaction, and on the other hand tailoring your work to meet the expectations or morality of your viewers."

... as if it were possible to disentangle the two (as if there *are* "two"). These things are discrete only in the abstract; never in the doing. In My Opinion.

Norma Desmond · June 2, 2012

Julie, from what you've said over the years, I didn't think it was something you do or try to do, so perhaps you are right about it being only in the abstract.

Julie H · June 2, 2012

Not related to our last, Fred, don't you find that having a viewer in mind is useful -- no matter what form that viewer takes? In other words, any fabrication of an imaginary "viewer" is useful?

Think of this imaginary viewer as a "container." I was just listening to a show on poetry, and the speaker was talking about how the rigid forms of traditional poetry were actually highly stimulating *because* they forced the poet out of his customary "form" -- forced him to make rhymes and use words purely to fit the form and therefore, in meshing those requirements with his own, very fruitful and otherwise unnoticed pathways were generated. The "container" actually *leads* -- almost no matter what form it is. [The speaker was noticing how many modern poets, as they matured, migrated to the challenges of rigid form.]

Even something as simple as some idea of making the most clichéd "pretty" photograph is a form that can stimulate the beginner out of or toward or ... anywhere! that's a shift into, from, etc. A push. Momentum ensues ...

Norma Desmond · June 2, 2012

<<<Not related to our last, Fred, don't you find that having a viewer in mind is useful -- no matter what form that viewer takes?>>>

It can be. There are definitely times I have a (generic) viewer in mind ("container" is a good idea for this). Sometimes not at all. It's the stepping back thing. It's good practice, for me, to step back from my work and get a perspective on it. That may include the imaginary other viewer. But it's also good practice to be in it, when I can achieve that, where there seems, for the moment, to be no perspective, just a doing. The thing I step back from.

_________________________________

Wouter, something I'd consider helpful here would be specifics, though I completely understand if you wouldn't want to go there. It might be fruitful to discuss how you'd begin to approach the kind of communication you're seeking, especially if you already have ideas about how to go about it, which I suspect you do.

luis_g · June 2, 2012

"Not related to our last, Fred, don't you find that having a viewer in mind is useful -- no matter what form that viewer takes? In other words, any fabrication of an imaginary "viewer" is useful?"

It can be, but no, not always useful. When it comes to messages, sometimes it's more expression than communication. If you're lucky and/or good, you may be overreaching, trespassing into the jungle, going off- map towards something you do not know, let alone understand. Who's your audience? You haven't a clue.

I may be jaded, but trying to map out the viewer's mind and targeting it specifically to a point-to-point correspondence seems use-and-joy less, outside of documentary and propagandist work. Most work falls short of that, I know. I am more of a picador than a matador. Generating unanticipated by me (yet associated) ideas in the viewer's mind is very appealing to me. YMMV, or course.

Julie H · June 2, 2012

Let me put it another way. A painter gets commissioned to paint a Madonna and child. Been done before a few times ...

He begins to paint with the firm idea of showing-viewers-the-Madonna-and-child. And yet, down through the ages, that reach-to-those-clichéd-viewers seems to often find difference precisely because it is the same. The "container" almost forces the artist to find his own newness -- because it's so obvious against the screen of that solid what-am-I-doing background.

[And, Luis, good grief, what the heck is "targeting it specifically to a point-to-point correspondence"? What kind of mind do you have, anyway? Mine, I'll give you a hint, doesn't have any "points" -- at least none that you can catch with a regulation butterfly net.]

andrew_molitor · June 2, 2012

In my view, if your aim is to communicate something to the viewer, you must be extremely obvious. You, as the person with the idea, will find whatever it is (be it a feeling, a political idea, whatever) obvious. You may be pleased with your subtle use of symbols, carefully overlapped and positioned to give just the right sense of ambiguity.

The viewer, not being you, won't see any of this stuff. You don't aim for a dumb viewer, you simply aim for a viewer who isn't you, someone who's coming to the image more or less cold. What you perceive as stupidly blunt the viewer will see as pleasingly subtle.

Any process which attempts to parse out too much refinement in the viewer response (do I want them to merely RESPOND or do I want them to FEEL as well?) is doomed to failure, the gap is simply too large between your mind and the viewer's to cross in one image. You might be able to do a more precise job with a show of multiple images, but that's really more of a curatorial job than a photographic one.

alan_zinn · June 2, 2012

Another good opportunity to pause and reflect Wouter. When photographing we can't help but be aware, consciously or not, that cross-cultural influence, public taste, and intellectual trends evolve rapidly and affect us. We should constantly learn to better see pictures and, as you say, "be" the viewer as well as the maker and from time to time evaluate how we're doing.

Towards that end we might prepare a clear response to, "What kind of pictures do I/you do?"

I'm thinking about the photographer's glib, catalog of photographic raison d'etra: " I want to see how things look photographed." or, "I take pictures I want to see." However trite, I've said both and sincerely meant it - not wanting to bore anyone with a "How to see MY photographs, yada yada… ." lecture.

This topic leads us to the subject of titles and artist statements. Briefly, my usual MO is let the viewer make up their own dang titles. There are good reasons text should accompany pictures, sometimes - if only to point the viewer/critic/student in the right direction. I agree with Luis and Steve pointed out - that an imagined viewer might be risky and miss out on chance impressions. I once had a show reviewer that made a point of how the engine pods on my untitled B-52 picture looked like scrota. Whaa?! In that instance creativity, as Fred said, was dangerous.

http://www.panoramacamera.us/air_b52_encampment.html

We more commonly imagine, I believe, a select circle of viewers with specialized experience and/or knowledge which would be to Fred's point.

Julie, I see the problem you describe, partly, as people not wanting to believe they succumbed to salacious pandering. The voyeur in all of us is an easy tune to play. The old Rorschach joke about all the "dirty" pictures pertains. I mistrust any declaration about the nude NOT being about sex.

I agree with those who say that showing viewers how things looked AND pleasing them as well as yourself should be somehow present within the image. Accessibility isn't a bad thing. I think it would be hard for any photographer not to be viewer conscious, actively or not.

luis_g · June 2, 2012

"[And, Luis, good grief, what the heck is "targeting it specifically to a point-to-point correspondence"?"

Why, it's a quasi-literal, or as Andrew put it, a "refined" message. As I remarked earlier, the kind we often see in documentary, commercial and propagandist work

"What kind of mind do you have, anyway?"

Thank you for asking.

i

lex_jenkins · June 2, 2012

The thorny issue of the photographer's intention and message for the viewer was addressed in that recent <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/apr/06/roger-ballen-photographer">Guardian review</a> of a Roger Ballen exhibit:

"It was a strange event, part-performance, part-lecture and, as such, as unsatisfying to me as his later images. It made me think, at times, that photographers should not really talk about their work – especially when they are essentially telling us how to respond to it, as was the case here."

</blockquote>

But that journalist also described Ballen as "a strange character" and said Ballen's recent work "leaves me cold." So in that instance it's difficult to sort out the photographer's intentions from one viewer's impressions. Since I'm a fan of Ballen's work my impressions would probably be biased in a different direction.

From my own perspective, I've enjoyed gallery shows and chats with photographers more when they seemed more interested in viewer impressions than in trying to explain or defend their own work. At the same time I enjoy reading or hearing interpretations of enigmatic photography, even if the photographer considers the interpretation "wrong". But I happen to subscribe to the possibly mistaken notion that creators are not always completely or consciously aware of their own influences and subtext, so unintended messages which they may deny may still be valid - at least to the viewer.

Norma Desmond · June 3, 2012

Lex, I think you make a very important point which is that, no matter what kind of expressive or communicative efforts go into a photo, it's also OK to let go of trying to control the responses beyond what you've already done photographically once you start showing it to viewers. There's a difference between communicating in or with the photo itself and communicating later about the photo. Sort of, you've done your job, you may now let the chips fall where they may . . . and, as you also say, be prepared to see and learn some things you may not have been aware of when you hear various reactions. At the same time, sure, if a photographer wants to verbalize some things with accompanying text, that may guide a viewer or just serve as additional material for the viewer to consider.

The kind of info that can accompany a photo really varies. A photographer can tell a viewer how to interpret his work . . . and to me, that's very delicate territory and often really detracts from the experience A photographer can talk about the circumstances of the photo and that can sometimes provide context. He might also talk about the making of it, his process, his approach, without necessarily providing "meaning" to the photo. These can, perhaps, provide the viewer with sign-posts that don't tell that viewer how to respond but ground him toward a kind of understanding and/or empathy.

Obviously, there are many different types of photos and many different photos, and it will be on a case by case basis what seems to work and what doesn't.

Julie H · June 3, 2012

Why does having a viewer(s) in mind necessarily equate with manipulation and rigidity -- or even trying to promote any particular "interpretation"?

In One Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade had a very, very particular "viewer" always and entirely in mind. How did that specificity of viewer-in-mind constrain her creativity or "tell the viewer how to respond"?

Or, have you ever seen a parent inventing a story to one of their kids when he/she was scared of the dark, or wouldn't go to sleep? That parent has one "viewer" firmly in mind, and yet I've heard some of the strangest, nuttiest, and least "controlled" creations come out of this on-the-fly one-to-one condition of creativity.

Norma Desmond · June 3, 2012

<<<Why does having a viewer(s) in mind necessarily equate with manipulation and rigidity -- or even trying to promote any particular "interpretation"?>>>

Julie, it doesn't equate with manipulation and rigidity. Having a viewer in mind doesn't necessitate promoting an interpretation. IMO, promoting an interpretation came up in response to Wouter's OP. He seemed concerned with the viewer understanding his message thereby, IMO, implying that he was trying to promote, to at least some degree, an interpretation through the making of the photo.

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