The really surprising thing that Flusser tries to convey in “the photograph”, at least for me, was the abstractedness of photographs; this contradicts all of the criticism and wonder that I’ve had for photography since childhood, and throws it out the window. he describes photographs as abstract concepts, based on the concepts that we as people have learned all our lives. In order for him to truly see a photograph, he must “decode” the abstractedness that takes away from, as he says, the true purpose of the photograph.
However, decoding of the photograph doesn’t seem to be that easy. One must first identify the photographer’s intention for taking the photograph, and keep in the mind the camera’s actual program; viewing them as separate wills is key to understanding Flusser’s concept of decoding. He views the abstractedness in all photographs as the clashing of interests between these two entities, and seems to view most photographers as being taken in by the camera’s program. The people who are able to dominate the camera’s program and submit it to their intention for the photograph are the people who Flusser truly seems to appreciate, at least, “on the basis of this criteria” (Flusser 47).
The entirety of the photograph, in terms of decoding, is then made more complex. Flusser argues that every photograph is a result “of co-operation and of conflict between the camera and the photographer” (Flusser 46). By introducing further levels of interpretation of the photograph, he furthers the amount of decoding that must be done before the critic can begin to truly see the ‘black and white’ concept(s) that the photographer was initially attempting to convey.
The truly confusing part of this entire concept is the idea that the camera’s program acts as a separate entity, in order for the critic to ‘theoretically’ find the original ideas behind the photograph’s conception. Camera’s programs simply do not act on their own. However, Flusser’s belief in that camera programs aim to absorb the photographer’s intentions into themselves, and that as more time goes by, the programs are succeeding at redirecting photographer’s intentions more and more. This seems unlikely to be the case, at least in my opinion. I do believe that he makes more of a point in the conflict and convergence of interests between the camera and the photographer, and that the photograph is the result of collaboration between the two.
Perhaps what Flusser means by the camera having a separate identity, is the idea that a camera has so many technological functions in this day and age, and acts almost as an advertisement for its own functions when people post photographs in media, in the hopes of “[encoding] their concepts of the world into images” (Flusser 45). As other people become aware of the functions of the camera’s program, the more people begin to use these programs with the intention of creating their own model. They instead, however, merely redirect their original intentions to the benefit of the camera program.
Understanding the relationship between the camera and the photographer is key to understanding Flusser’s concept of photographs, and also his ideas of abstractedness. The difficulty primarily seems to be in separating the two concepts for the sake of theory, since they are not actually seen as different. I have found that it is easier to understand the motives behind each entity, and continuing to observe how the two affect one another in the finished photograph.