ยฉ Chris Steele-Perkins
Seeing Is Not Yet Understanding
There is a confusion that runs through much of photography today: the idea that seeing an image already means understanding it. You look at it, you react, maybe you like it. And thatโs where it ends. But between seeing and understanding there is a wide gap, and most of the time it remains empty.
Looking at a photograph is immediate. Understanding why it exists, what holds it together, where it gives way, is something else entirely. It requires distance, time, and above all a willingness to question what you thought you had done. This is why many bodies of work seem to function as long as they stay close to the person who made them. As soon as they move away, as soon as they are looked at from the outside, they begin to lose strength.
Many photographers know their own process perfectly. They remember the moment, the intention, the difficulty, the risk. But none of this lives inside the image. It lives around it. And when the photograph has to walk on its own, without the story that supports it, that is when you see whether it really holds. Whether it has a structure. Whether it has a reason to exist beyond the experience of the person who took it.
In editorial work, this passage is constant. Images arrive that are careful, coherent, often appreciated. But when you place them in sequence, when you remove them from their emotional context, when you ask them to sustain a gaze that does not already know them, many of them deflate. Not because they are wrong, but because they have not yet been truly read.
Reading a photograph means asking what it is doing, not what it meant to do. It means looking at it as if it were not yours. Without defending it. Without completing it with what you know but no one else can know. It is an uncomfortable exercise, because it puts an end to excuses. But it is also the only way to understand whether you are building something or simply accumulating images.
Perhaps the point is not to produce better photographs. Perhaps it is to learn how to look at them with less indulgence. Because as long as an image needs you to explain it, it is not ready yet. And as long as you are not willing to read it the way a stranger would, you are still only looking.
Tomorrow, perhaps, we can ask what happens when that gaze is not yours. But for now, this is enough: seeing is not yet understanding. And understanding is never automatic.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.