Before you read any further, can you think of any photographs that are not used as a means of expression or communication? Blog about them.

This was a fairly easy question to answer. As far as I’m concerned all photos communicate “something” regardless of intent. They may communicate something different to different people, they may communicate what the author intended, the meaning may change as the world changes but they all communicate something that’s real, imagined or structured.

Images have changed what they communicate to me over time. As I have grown older and experienced more, what I see in images is sometimes different from what I might have seen, years, months or sometimes even days before. This has to be the same for everyone whatever their age or experience.

The majority of photographs I have taken over the past 20years have been taken without thinking about what I want them to “say”. I could therefore suggest that they don’t say anything!
But – this is not true. I may not have been consciously thinking of what I wanted them to say but for sure I was taking them for a reason and that reason was to communicate something, either to me, to remind me of a scene or objects. Or for someone else to remind, or have a record of an event perhaps. For most of that time I suspect I was just focusing on the literal aspects of the scene or the objects and not thinking about the “feelings” particular elements of a photograph could induce. I wasn’t thinking about signs, but suspect I used some without thinking about it. I may or may not have used them correctly. I suspect I also used Punctums without realising they had a name!