PICK OF THE WEEK:A moment may have many meanings

I'm Saying Nothing (Katoomba Australia April 2014)

Street Photography is about the recording and sharing of those supposedly ordinary moments when people are doing "ordinary" things, when they are talking, walking, working, or in some other ways engaged in their ordinary activities and simply going about their daily lives.

Just like the couple in this week's Pick. Clearly they are sharing a joke. The guy is keeping his mouth firmly closed while the woman is having a good laugh. Probably at his expense. Is she teasing him? Is he keeping quiet about something that she's anxious to hear? Are they on the way to a surprise that she's trying to tease out of him? Whatever is going on, this is one of those ordinary moments that has transcended itself: it is no longer ordinary; it is special.

Special because it's clearly an intimate moment being shared by these two. Special too because it opens up to us, the viewers, all sorts of possibilities. We can guess what is going on, what the joke might be and why the guy is keeping firmly quiet. And, in that guessing, we put our own interpretations onto this lovely image and place ourselves into this intimate scene. We bring to the viewing and reflection on the scene our own histories, our own memories, dreams, fantasies. Our own ideas and projections.

But, does this mean we are changing the "reality" of this scene? No, I don't think so. There is a limit to what the camera can record of any scene. It has recorded a visual representation of these two at this moment and it can only really record what it "sees" as a still camera must. We can't hear the conversation; we don't know what's just happened or what will  happen in the moments after the image is made. When you think about it, it is pretty much required that we bring some kind of interpretation to any photograph if we are to work out what is, or might be, going on.

Whatever we project onto the scene in this photograph, whatever stories we come up with go towards creating a new or other reality. It by no means takes away from the "true" reality of the moment this image represents (any photo is of course only a representation of what is photographed; it is not the thing itself). You could say that our viewing of this or any other photograph simply adds layers of meaning.

I know, of course, I am saying nothing new here. This concept of "we all bring our own interpretations to the viewing of a photograph" is well known. I guess what I am saying is this: it's okay to add our own layers of meaning, even to a photograph of a so-called ordinary moment in the lives of the so-called ordinary people. And it doesn't really matter if those layers of meaning have little or no relationship to whatever the "true reality" of that moment might be. This opportunity to create new meanings is one of the great gifts that street photography offers to us all, whether we are the ones making the photos, appearing in them or, those viewing them. Perhaps most especially to the viewer.

There is one condition we should place on this all being okay: Any new layer of meaning we add to an image, any new reality we attribute to a photograph, must be done with a good heart. The process must be imbued with a spirit of goodwill, love even.