The way in which the photograph records experience is also different from the way of language. Language makes sense only when it is presented as a sequence of propositions. Meaning is distorted when a word or sentence is, as we say, taken out of context; when a reader or listener is deprived of what was said before, and after. But there is no such thing as a photograph taken out of context, for a photograph does not require one. In fact, the point of photography is to isolate images from context, so as to make them visible in a different way.
ATTRIBUTION:
Neil Postman, U.S. social critic, educator. “The Peek-a-Boo World,” Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Viking (1985).
