Photographs are everywhere.  We see them in albums, magazines, books, posters, boxes and postcards. But what does that mean? According to the article, all these images contain concepts in some program but they are meant to program the behavior of society. The inexperienced observer sees them as true views of the world around us.  Our naive observer will naturally assume that he can see the world through photographs, but this implies that the world of photographs is compatible with the reality of our world. This unsophisticated observer sees color and black/white situations in the photographic universe, but do they correspond to real world situations? And if not, how is the photographic universe related to the world? With these questions, the naive observer is confronted with the philosophy of photography he was trying to avoid in the first place.

Black/white situations cannot be found in the world because they are considered limits to our ideal situations. “Black is the absence of light; white is the total presence of light (Flusser).” Black and white situations are theoretical because they cannot be manifested in the world.  Perhaps they only exist in photographs. This brings us to the concept that gray is the color of theory because it exists both in a photograph and in the world. So how does the world and a photograph relate to one another? How does the photo represent what the photographer is trying to convey? The sophisticated observer is tasked with decoding that message.  Because there is so much gray in the world “Black/white photographs are more concrete, and in this sense, “truer” than color photographs (Flusser).  Colors in photographs are dependent upon a chemical reaction in an attempt to create, for example, the colors of a field. But due to the complexities of the color photograph, it is only a manufactured representation of its subject. Evaluation of the true significance of a photograph is dependent upon this decoding of the photograph. While both the black and white photograph and the color photograph contain theoretical information, decoding a photograph relates to what extent and depth the person viewing the photograph wants to delve, but more importantly the photographers intentions and the program of the camera.

The photographer’s intentions according to Flusser are to “…inform others and through their photographs to immortalize themselves in the memories of others.”  This is established through the interaction of a person or photographer and a feedback mechanism or camera.  This action can be cooperative or can be conflicted with each side having its inherent qualities.  However, when the human qualities win out over the mechanical program of the camera, the “best” photographs are achieved.  The manipulation of a camera to express the photographer’s intentions.  Flusser feels that when a photograph is examined, it will either be decoded when the intentions of the photograph are discovered or it will not. If not it is simply a picture.