> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://photopedagogy.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How Little We See - URL: https://photopedagogy.ghost.io/how-little/ - Published: 2025-06-23T09:54:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-19T12:21:21.000Z - Description: On the strangeness of photographs. - Author: Jon Nicholls - Tags: Pedagogy As a secondary school teacher of photography, one of the issues I encounter each year is that students tend to think of photographs as perfectly normal, transparent, neutral pictures of things. This is not surprising. The invisibility of photographs is a necessary condition for those who wish to use them for coercive purposes. If you are an advertiser, newspaper editor, social media influencer or politician, for example, it’s much better if your viewer/reader accepts, without question, the photographic ‘evidence’ you present to bolster your world view or sell some product. Consequently, it’s often left to visual artists, working with photographic technologies, to draw deliberate attention to the *strangeness* of photographs.\* ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1hIq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb2dfffcd-0a50-4f29-92b2-b5ce828dd4e6_642x843.jpeg) John Baldessari **\-** **An Artist is Not Merely the Slavish Announcer,* 1966–1968 Artists who turned to the camera in the late 1960s and early 70s did so because they recognised how dominant photographs had become as carriers of cultural messages and how little understood they were by most people as technological abstractions.† [The Pictures Generation](https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/pictures-generation?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) probed away at the language and grammar of photography, attempting to drive a wedge between what we see in a photograph and how this relates to the visible world. I remember a course at The Photographers’ Gallery a while back in which the speaker described this period as a time when photography began to hate itself. Susan Sontag’s scathing critiques, collected in [*On Photography*](https://www.photopedagogy.com/susan-sontag.html?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io), and John Tagg’s alternative history of the medium in [*The Burden of Representation*](https://www.photopedagogy.com/john-tagg.html?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io), pointed an accusing finger at photography’s corrosive cultural power. > *Photographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we're shown a photograph of it \[…\] Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are. Those occasions when the taking of photographs is relatively undiscriminating, promiscuous, or self-effacing do not lessen the didacticism of the whole enterprise. This very passivity - and ubiquity - of the photographic record is photography's "message," its aggression.* > > — **Susan Sontag**, from *On Photography*, 1977 There are many examples of writing from this period (and more recently) which admonish photography (and, by implication, its practitioners and the industry that supports it) for a variety of crimes - objectification, insensitivity, condescension, mis-representation, acquisitiveness, violence etc. Photography harms people, they say, and contributes to ecocide. Sobering stuff. I sometimes sense photographers’ (and other commentators’) frustrations with the legacy of this critical turn. I get it. It’s a challenge to everyday picture-making, to earning a living from the medium and making an impact on social media. Why should I have to engage with all this academic stuff that has little relevance to my interest in photography? Isn’t it all a bit old-hat? Haven’t we moved beyond all this chin-stroking, navel-gazing, ponderous, highfalutin verbiage? Can’t we just get back to making and admiring pictures for their formal qualities? > *Photography changes nothing. Violence continues, poverty continues. Children are still being killed in stupid wars.* > > — **Letizia Battaglia** Questioning the relevance of critical viewpoints in relation to one’s own work is one thing but I don’t think it’s fair to deny students access to the ideas.‡ How to share some of these justly critical viewpoints with young photographers without crushing their enthusiasm for making pictures? I think a number of strategies can be helpful. What follows, then, are just a few ideas that encourage a practical approach to aspects of photography theory.§ --- ### **Are photographs reliable?** Whenever introducing students to a problematic idea in photography, I try to begin by looking at a picture together. For example, if you want to encourage young photographers to think about the reliability of photographic [evidence](https://www.photopedagogy.com/believable-fictions.html?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io), you could show them something like this: ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UI42!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F16fd5cd8-5443-43bd-8fac-b0b240043cb9_994x800.png) Morgan Ashcom - from **What The Living Carry,* 2015 What’s going on here? Where are we? What’s happened? How can you tell? What’s occurring outside the frame? How does this picture make you feel? Is it possible to tell, from the picture, whether or not we are looking at a real event? Photographs look so much like the thing photographed that we are easily seduced into believing what we see (despite all the knowledge we have about photographic manipulation and AI). What if we throw another piece of ‘evidence’ into the mix? ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Po5z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F96db00ad-d322-415a-a8ee-0afe16a41895_1399x1920.jpeg) Does the existence of the letter, seemingly addressed to the photographer about a botched DNA test and a dog called Toot who dances the Macarena, make the photograph more or less believable? Try searching online for Hoys Fork or the Center for Epigenetics and Wellness of the Spirit, helpfully located on Wellness Lane. The story behind Ashcom’s project and the invention of [Hoy’s Fork](https://morganashcom.format.com/what-the-living-carry?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io#1), a fictional town in rural America, complete with made-up map and correspondence to further confuse the reader/viewer, is a great example to share with students. Projects like this help to illustrate the fertile [grey area between fact and fiction](https://www.photopedagogy.com/sugar-paper-theories.html?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) in which many contemporary photographers operate.‖ --- ### **Can photographs be wrong?** One way to draw out students’ tacit understanding of photography is to ask them to make images that defy the ‘rules’ of the game. These ‘rules’ have been absorbed by students without them even realising it. Rather than beginning with a discussion about what they think the ‘rules’ are, you could ask them to make photographs that are *wrong*. When they return with their wrong photographs, ask them to select the *wrongest* and explain why. Several artists/photographers have had fun with this idea: ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ZspV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2fc52fde-d864-4832-aa6a-04be50a8521c_490x640.jpeg) John Baldessari - **Wrong*, 1967 What’s wrong with this picture? Let’s have a heated debate. Noah, for example, found himself on the horns of a typical philosophical dilemma: ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eBe4!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F85a62795-432f-487d-b596-302e44105b4b_1100x674.png) Photographs don’t tell us what to think about them. They are, to use a fancy term, polysemic. Consequently, they often rely on textual support - a caption, a story, associated documents etc. What happens when the text is playful or misleading (as was the case with Morgan Ashcom’s project)? Whilst recognising that he’s supposed to think that all art is valuable (he’s learned that at school), Noah clearly prefers his photographs to be in colour, sharply focused and depicting something inherently interesting. Why is that? He’s also less bothered about the ‘rule’ that it’s a good idea not to have a tree trunk emerging from your subject’s head! Here are some other examples of pictures that play with notions of *wrongness*: ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!h1Dc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F77ea28f1-a2d1-4c70-8330-c038727547e3_1638x1316.png) Ralph Eugene Meatyard - **Untitled*, c. 1957-58 ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!uDLj!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faf3da769-0240-4402-a669-e35380c7f825_581x760.jpeg) ****Akihiko Miyoshi** \- from **Abstract Photographs*, 2013 ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Z8f1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb25a3d74-c1b2-4e78-b07b-aae2cdc9cf2b_836x578.png) Ray Metzker - from **Pictus Interruptus*, 1976-1981 In each of these examples, the artist/photographer has disrupted our conventional expectations about how photographs are meant to look. Their pictures are strange only insofar as we are reminded that we are looking at an artificially constructed version of reality. We are looking at a *photograph* *of something*, not just at *the thing photographed*. --- ### **Can photographs tell tales?** In my experience, most students tend to think of photographs singly rather than in groups and sequences. One useful exercise is to print a large number of pictures (from a personal or public archive) and lay them out in the classroom.¶ Ask students to select 5 pictures each. In small groups, ask them to look at each others’ selections and choose only 5\. They must have some kind of criteria for their selections and achieve consensus. Give them a time limit. Now ask them to sequence the images 1-5\. Again, they must have secure criteria. Re-photographing these combinations of pictures can be fun, perhaps focusing on their layout or the joins between the images (creating diptychs) etc. Finally, ask them to construct a story to accompany their sequence of images. This can be any kind of story - it’s always interesting to note (and report back) on the type and structure of these stories, whether or not they borrow from particular genres or patterns, how faithful to the images they are or, conversely, how seemingly imaginative or divergent. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/cc/10/cc10dd61-f9df-448c-99a4-1ae3f24596e3/content/images/2026/09/29115184-1b9b-4fab-97db-54dde08041c0_1280x1280.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/cc/10/cc10dd61-f9df-448c-99a4-1ae3f24596e3/content/images/2026/09/2fb4493e-250d-4325-9421-3cc61116e9cc_1080x1080.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/cc/10/cc10dd61-f9df-448c-99a4-1ae3f24596e3/content/images/2026/09/8d49b8a8-7b48-4a0f-b879-7a535c90152c_1080x1080.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/cc/10/cc10dd61-f9df-448c-99a4-1ae3f24596e3/content/images/2026/09/96dae0a3-8ae4-4ce6-a6ab-a558cac930e7_1080x1080.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/cc/10/cc10dd61-f9df-448c-99a4-1ae3f24596e3/content/images/2026/09/ec3f4889-faea-45b2-b3ef-73d797165557_1080x1080.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/cc/10/cc10dd61-f9df-448c-99a4-1ae3f24596e3/content/images/2026/09/378d93c8-da77-4f97-b2a5-d52582bbdba1_1280x1280-1.jpg) Telling Tales activity Sometimes, I randomly assign a number to each group and (again randomly, dice are useful) get them to stick their pictures in a long line on the classroom wall. Then, collectively, we attempt to construct a longer narrative. I ask them to reflect on the difference between single photographs and groups/sequences of photographs. Do photographs tell tales? Where do these tales come from? A photograph, after all, only shows us the light that bounced off something. It doesn’t tell us what or how to think. This can of worms, once opened, can generate hours of heated debate. --- ### **Are photographs flattening?** We think of photographs as two dimensional and (mostly) instantaneous. But all photographs contain a parcel of time (even if it’s only a fraction of a second) and it’s easy to forget that a photograph, once printed, is a three-dimensional object. It has height, width and depth (however thin the paper support might be). Flatness is a really interesting aspect of photography. The way that camera vision flattens three-dimensional space is one of its fascinating grammatical features.\*\* One of the activities I enjoy most is asking students to turn a small group of 4x6 printed photographs into a sculpture using only scissors and tape. The material constraints are important. ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Q_sA!,w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa45640d2-5e48-4e9e-9f8c-eb08c2a9c274_1080x1080.jpeg) Photosculptures activity, 2019 I encourage them to experiment in any way they like. The only stipulation is that the resulting photosculpture should be able support itself. I’m always amazed by the creativity and inventiveness of these structures. Once they’ve been fabricated and admired, we set about photographing them, returning them to flat(ter) images, emphasising their three-dimensionality with a shallow depth of field and photographing them from different angles. This dialogue between the three-dimensional world, the (apparently) two-dimensional image and the three-dimensional photosculpture (and then back to the seemingly two-dimensional picture again, a potentially endless process) raises some interesting issues about the way photographs work and their relationship to the world around us. It’s not something that is easily resolved, but open, polysemic and indeterminate. Educational gold and loads of fun! --- Most people are brought up to believe that a photograph is transparent, invisible, non-existent. In other words, they see the thing depicted in the photograph rather than the photograph itself. This education in photography begins early, is insidious (not deliberate) and is fairly cemented by the time school begins. For me, photography education involves a careful process of estrangement or alienation, undermining the tacit understanding of photographs as facsimiles of observable reality. This is harder to achieve with a photograph than other types of pictures because of the way photographic images are made and how they look. In my experience, this is most effectively achieved by a sequence of playful exercises that prompt open, ongoing and inconclusive discussion in a supportive, non-judgemental, democratic environment. Theory can help us understand how little we see. --- Thanks for reading PhotoPedagogy! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. [Subscribe](#/portal/signup/free) *These posts will always be free but, if you enjoy reading them, you can support my analogue photography habit, and that of my students, by contributing to the film fund. Thanks to those of you who have already done so. All donations of whatever size are very gratefully received.* [Buy me some film](https://buymeacoffee.com/photopedagogy?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) --- \* I wondered about what image to insert here and settled eventually on this playful and ambiguous Baldessari. Firstly, it’s not strictly a photograph and its not completely authored by the artist. He commissioned a commercial sign painter to create the text (taken from an art textbook) underneath a banal screen printed snapshot photograph. This combination of text/image and complicated authorship, in addition to the unusual materials and dimensions of the artwork (the exact size of a van door) is typical of a conceptual approach designed to question the evidential status of photography and the function of art in contemporary culture. And it does all this elegantly, economically and with wry humour. † [https://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-5](https://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-5?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) ‡ It seems pretty incontestable that photography has been and still is responsible for some seriously unethical behaviours and impacts. All photographers must come to terms with the troubling legacy of the medium and reflect on their own ethics. § We have also tried to make some of these ideas accessible through our [Threshold Concepts for Photography](https://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concepts1.html?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io). ‖ [https://www.photopedagogy.com/evidence](https://www.photopedagogy.com/evidence?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) ¶ The inspiration for this activity was jointly a workshop led by the wonderful [Anna Lucas](https://annalucas.co.uk/work/workshop/?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) at Tate Modern in 2016 and an activity shared by [Lewis Bush](https://www.lewisbush.com/?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) at my school in 2019\. I tend to keep a pile of cheap machine prints of my own images lying about for activities like this. \*\* [https://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-8](https://www.photopedagogy.com/threshold-concept-8?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io)