WHAT WE THINK WE REALLY THINK
by Patryk Rebisz

At the end of each year everyone who has access to photographic content compiles lists of the 10, 50 or 100 best photos of the year. Many of these lists are compiled by photo editors. In addition to these lists, due to wonders of the internet, many websites also produce best-picture lists which are voted on by visitors.

When you look over these lists, you’re likely to discover a few recurring themes. Every editorialized list deals with death, suffering, moments of trauma while every viewer list deals with landscapes, flowers, sunsets and nature. This discrepancy tells us something about the states of mind the viewers and editors were in when choosing the images. The editors believe their chosen images are what they think we should pay attention to. The viewers chose what they think they like, not necessarily what they like, but what they think they should pay attention to. This distinction is very important as the editors do the thinking for others while the public uses others to do the thinking for them.

A recent anthropological study discovered that when people are asked to give their opinion, they never really voice their opinions but rather what they think society wants them so say. In essence, they are upholding the status quo. By choosing the “pretty pictures” of nature, they are choosing what they think society would deem the strongest photo. Why is it then that pictures of tragedy and drama are not seen by the viewers as worthy of society’s attention?

Images of nature are not controversial, they are “pretty” and nothing else. In a way, they are ‘pre-digested’ in that nothing needs to be known about the picture’s context; the image is what it is. There is no hidden meaning behind it and because the pictures rarely feature human subjects, the pictures lack any reference to the past, present or future.

Editorialized pictures, on the other hand, point out the violence of the world. One can’t help but notice that there is more going on beyond what is seen. The context is important: who’s killing whom and why. This in turn requires more knowledge on the part of the observer. The viewer feels unfulfilled intellectually, maybe even a bit inferior for not fully grasping the real meaning of the image. By voting for pictures of banality, we are escaping that uncomfortable state of mind that shows that we might not be who we believe ourselves to be.

I don’t want to make the mistake of denying the temporary pleasure nature photographs can bring, nor do I want to overemphasize the importance of dramatic images. Often, when you’re bombarded by an avalanche of dramatic images, they end up losing their power. The images, even those of violence, end up looking almost grotesque, devoid of their original impact. And yet it needs to be both states that images of drama at least attempt to enlarge our understanding of the world while the nature “pretty shots” mask our insecurities.

Of course, stating that the power of individual images gets diminished by the presence of similar images while also stating that everyone should believe dramatic images are relevant is hypocritical. The truth is probably more complex. We should be paying attention to the world’s drama but we never will. We should NOT be impressed by the simplicity of nature photographs but we WILL… or will we? This is the ultimate tragedy of our time; it’s not the dead people in the editorialized pictures OR the bright red sunsets, it’s the fact that neither really matters.

And yet, lists ARE created where dozens if not hundreds of pictures populate web pages. What makes us stop at one “irrelevant” picture and spend a moment more on it than any other? The image itself lacks any intrinsic value, it matters only as much as the viewer chooses it to matter. Someone who’s never seen an image will be impressed by anything whereas someone who’s seen thousands of images (or millions if we consider our present day mode of image consumption) will be unaffected by even the most extreme pictures.

Should the viewer be held responsible for consuming too much? Or should the image maker be held accountable for not pushing the medium far enough? I don’t claim to have an answer but I do know that for image makers to stay relevant they need to push themselves far, much further they then ever were required to.