As I was reading The Photograph by Vilem Flusser, one thing stuck out to me: color. I’ve always been fascinated by analog color photography. I’ve taken so many “film” pictures and each and every one of them, no matter how bad it might look, is special to me. I’ve been using cheap Fujifilm Superia X-TRA for the most part and even though it’s on the lower end of the photographic film scale, there are some photos that the saturation levels are higher than others, and it looks so beautiful, at least to me. When Vilem Flusser was talking about “decoding” the “green” field, I think he was referring to how people will interpret it. For example, if I shot that field with Superia X-TRA, it might be oversaturated a bit, but if I used Kodak Portra, which might look a little flatter, in terms of color. We can take these two films and see that the “green” of the field will be different in both results, and this is what he was talking: how the creativity in the choice of what film you use will yield a more “abstract” result. If I used Kodak Tri-X, a popular black and white film, I would just see a bland field. The choice of using an oversaturated film would suggest that it might be mid springtime and there was a healthy amount of rainfall. Using flat film would suggest that it might be summertime or fall. This is the creative intent of the photographer who would use different films to convey different messages about their surroundings. Vilem Flusser is trying to point out that there’s an even deeper meaning to all things, especially in photography. He wants us to dive deeper and “decode” the photos presented to us, so that we can become masters, not slaves, of the camera.