The Photograph: How Do We Read A Photograph?

The book tells us that people go further from looking at a photograph and read it as if it were a text. In some pictures the reader cannot really know what the photographer was thinking or seeing during the time of the picture. The photograph only captures a moment in time and only a specific event. No one could know what was truly going on around the photograph, even if the photographer tells them. Who's to say the photographer is telling what really happened? A photograph has the ability to tell as story, that is why we read them as if they were texts. The person reading the photograph must look at the expression of the person or thing that may be in the photograph. Arbus's photograph of the twin girls shows their different expressions. One girl seems to be the happier twin while the other ones seems to be more passive. A true critique would look at their hands and how one is open and one is closed and other details like that. They also look at how it relates to the real world. Reading a photograph takes a lot of time and attention to detail.