Embalmed Time

Book excerpt: What is a photographic image, a painting or a sculpture other than a way to capture the viewer's attention? The author has hopefully seen something in her environment that she wants to draw the viewer's attention to. The photographic image can, in other words, be said to be a trap for our gaze. These traps may be more or less effective, the viewer must work with this trap in order for it to work. This is because we cannot see something in an image that we have not already seen or we cannot see something that we have not already have been able to imagine. If another person may think the content, there is a possibility that the viewer can also see it. This book contains some thinking about what a photographic image really is in a couple of essays.