Photographs are indeed everywhere, as introduced in Vilhim Flusser’s The Photograph, however this just adds to the ‘danger’ of their existence. At the most simple, naïve interpretation of photographs, they “represent the world itself”. The author begins to deconstruct this perception of the photograph by explaining the concept of white and black. This concept cuts things down into a specific binary, where there are only two distinct choices. Like yes and no, 0 and 1, 100% good and 100% bad. There are some gray areas explained to exist, but this is explained to show how black-and-white photographs are images of theory. By this explanation, black-and-white photographs should exist in a vacuum, except they aren’t. They exist, in photographs. This creates a sense of separation between photographs and real life, proving the obvious: photographs are a form of art, and have meaning only understood through abstract concepts.
From here, the article goes into further depth such as how “green” in the world of concepts has an infinite amount of meaning, and also how it’s basically impossible to decode every single meaning in a photograph. From how I see it, especially after this article, decoding a photograph is best done when comparing the intentions of the photographer and even the camera. Photographs are deceptive in this way, behaving like magical beings with a gateway to another unreal world. Photographers do what they can to manipulate photographs, making them into some form of super being.
