when, and this is the key aspect, when that photograph is networked (posted online)...
Dogs, Cats, Mappr, Hamster 1Sept05
Right now, there is very little about my argument this is specific to photography. It could, at this point, as easily be about blogs. And that's fine, insofar as I see much in common between online photography and blogs (I see them as part of the same political moment), and insofar as I've been writing about blogs as well. But it's a shame, insofar as I believe the public for photography functions differently than the public for blogs or vlogs or del.icio.us links or audioscrobbler or etc.
Photographic analysis, pictorial analysis, as I know it, seems to rely entirely on representational accounts, accounts which in the main look backwards, into the past of a photo, and those just aren't working for me at all. They seem to close their eyes to all possible uses, relegating them to that maligned realm of mere utility. Or trying to account for them all in that magnanimous gesture of identifying a diverse, unpredictable, powerful readership and multiple interpretations.