method – 17 – Learning to Read a Photograph

Learning to Read a Photograph – 

Reconstructing family history requires self-control. I notice that I have a tendency to look for something in a photograph that isn’t actually depicted in it. I stare. What am I looking for? Am I longing for something? Am I conjuring it up this way? Am I missing something? Or is it the other way around: is something from the past imposing itself on my gaze? So is it staring out from within me and shaping my view of reality? Am I staring something away? Do events—which I don’t even know about—shape my perception of reality today? Does this force pushing outward from within distort my perception, just as a color filter does when I place it over a photograph?

You have to look at photographs again and again. If you come from a broken family, it’s possible that you won’t recognize the people in the photo, even though you know them. You’ve eliminated them from your own mind’s eye and become blind to reality depicted. So, by looking closely at a photograph, you learn something about your own perception, repression, or self-censorship. But you also learn, that J. never really explained this photo.