Photography differs from other visual art forms in two important respects. First, it is indexical: the photograph records a scene that briefly existed external to the artist. Second, the image is inseparable from the physical position and viewpoint of the photographer, whose dominant eye determines the perspective from which the world is seen. I refer to this latter quality as the “Malkovich principle,” after the film Being John Malkovich. By contrast, forms such as painting are neither bound to an external reality nor dependent upon the embodied viewpoint of the artist in the same direct way; nor are they bound to a discrete moment in time.

As viewers, we are invited to occupy the same space once inhabited by the photographer. Because the photographer physically stood within the picture space, the viewer now assumes that same visual position. In reportage photography, surrounding text often supplies explanatory context, situating the image within a broader narrative. In art photography, however, explanation may be deliberately withheld. One is given only the scene itself. Anything beyond the boundary of the frame remains conjectural, existing only as inference or imagination.

When presented with a photograph, the viewer is likely to ask: where are we, meaning both viewer and photographer, and what are we looking at? But the more useful task is to dig deeper. One may not be given a geographical location or a verbal description of the scene. Instead, the viewer must begin with what can be determined from the image itself: What is our position relative to the scene? What can be identified within it? What tensions are present within the image? And what emotional and intellectual responses does the image produce?