not to communicate my story, but maybe generate one, or receive one when it is viewed...
Yes, that's pretty much what I'm thinking. Sorry for the longish response, but clearly I'm using this thread to figure out my own standpoint.
My background is not in visual arts and my photography craft is "under developed."
🙂 Instead, cognition, learning, and literature inform my approach. I see photos, at their best, as metaphor: variously defined , but most simply as "a comparison, one half of which remains unstated."
In literature, metaphor works because the author directs or focuses attention or is in control of the initial image (the "stated" half of the comparison.) This, in a sense, is universal: everyone reads the same words or sees the same photograph.
Then it's up to reader/viewer to draw from their own experiences to complete the comparison--a highly individual, but always connected process.
I enjoy photographs when they allow careful and observant people to add meaning to my prior experiences (and add experience to my prior meanings.) Often, I appreciate their providing additional context to their images--yes, using language to help me "relate" or point me in a useful direction.
Also, I am wary of those photographers who simply say, in effect, "I shot it; take it or leave it." That works for the occasional and proven genius, an artist whose work has earned trust among the community of trustworthy observers.
It's much riskier for all the rest of us who "expose" our work and take responsibility for the fact that if it's public, it communicates.
