Hi,
I don't have time to look at all those photos but I'll try to respond without actually seeing the image you are talking about because something you wrote made me think of something I said in the other thread.
I don't know what side of the argument you are on, but for me, none of those photos tell a story on their own. Even the WTC shot, without knowing the background, it's a burning building with a plane flying past. I remember at the time even watching it on TV some people found it hard to believe two plane flew into the buildings, so with one still, with no background knowledge, I would imagine hardly anyone would guess what actually happened.
"Hardly anyone would guess what actually happenend" is not the same as No one could possibly guess or figure it out. But that's not my point, I'm just saying.
Like I say, I'm not sure if those photos are meant to prove or disprove that photos can tell a story, but for me, they don't. Take away background knowledge and context, and you've got pretty much nothing.
That might be true but as you point out in your very next sentence that's actually usually not true. And obviously you have to be able to read and interpret the clues and visual language shown just as you would have to start with a vocabulary and know how to read in order to get the story from a novel.
In reality though, it does not matter, as we generally all have that background knowledge and can piece things together. The story we put together may be completely inaccurate, but it's a story nonetheless.
This is what echos my feelings. I do think pictures can and do tell stories, but I don't think it's always the story the photographer might have wanted to tell. Each person reads a picture through the filter of their own point-of-view and brings their own experience and reference points. So any story has different meanings and different points each reader might relate to.
I don't think a photo usually tells a whole story in the sense of we know everything about the people or place; their name, what language they speak, etc. It's not that kind of story. If there is a picture of people running you don't ask, who are they, why are they running, etc. It's a photo not a book. The story is what you see: people running down the street.
I think of photographs as closer to poems rather than novels. You might get some other information from clues in the frame. A city street? Any signage to read? Is someone carrying an iPhone? Maybe current times. Is everyone wearing clown clothes? Maybe the 1970s.
😀 Et cetera. No one said it was easy. Just like it does take some skill and practice to read a book. Just like it takes some skill and practice to take good photographs.
As you wrote, though perhaps inaccurate from the actual circumstances of the photograph, there is a story there.
That's how I see it.
