Eggs No. 1 ~ Fall 2009
Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.
Duane Michals
How does one encounter a photographic image? After all, the image is visual, contains no words, no sentences, no paragraphs, no linguistic structure, yet, the only way one can engage with the image is through the underlying text created as one interrogates the image itself. Language, the metaphor that enriches our visual experience, is the connection between the visual and the construction of meaning that emerges from that interrogation. Language bridges the difference between the image and the understanding. One interrogates through language, deconstructing the visual text contained within the four corners of the image itself.
Let’s look at the image of eggs in this post. I always already introduce language into the interrogation of the image by naming the image. While Eggs may be obvious, this title, nevertheless, introduces language into the foundation of interpretation for the image. The title Eggs is but one of an infinite number of titles I might have chosen. Let’s see, I could have named this image Untitled, or I might have named it You gotta break some Eggs because the image is framed in part by the cake pan in which the eggs rest and because you gotta break some eggs to bake a cake. The image itself is shot in black and white, a factor that removes the image a full step away from being a document that re-presents itself as a slice of reality. While it is true that dogs see black and white only, humans visually experience the world in a full visual spectrum of color. Black and white adds an additional layer of difference between the origins of the image that are always already an enigma and the final tangible product we call a photograph which is far removed from the questionable origins of the image itself.
In the end, the image of the eggs in the cake pan may ask both important and trivial questions about eggs and scratch baking but as a finished image what other questions are raised by the plain simplicity of the image. Here are but a few of the uncertainties that haunt this image. Where are the other ingredients used for cake baking a cake, the flour, salt, pepper, icing, or, perhaps, the tools for decorating…the list goes on. Why so many eggs? How much time is left? How long does it take to bake a cake in the first instance? And what is outside the frame? What have I hidden from view? Why did I choose to include only this composition as the image I present? Unanswered questions that may or may not be asked by observers render the image always already subject to the interrogation of language. Through the process of interrogation we may be able to identify the differences that make the image unique from all other images and from the origins of this image, differences that always already are uncovered through language at the place where texts overlap at meaningful intersections.
The Eggs No. 1 ~ Fall 2009 by Roger Passman, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
