i come from the waters

I won’t bang my metaphorical fists on the table repeatedly to make a point. I will type in all caps for the same effect.

Thus far, scant attention has been devoted to the role of viewing in the event of photography where it is responsible for the always unfinished nature of this event. The position of the spectator is one that any subject can hold at any given moment, whether or not she is photographer or photographed. The overemphasis on the role of the photographer and the lack of weight attributed to that of the spectator are derived from the prevailing but erroneous conceptualization of photography in terms of sealing off a certain instant framed by the photographer who observes it and who witnesses it from the outside, of freezing this instant or sealing it in death before sharing it with those who observe his or her testimony. But a photograph is never testimony of the photographer alone, and the event of photography, unlike the photographed event, continues to exist despite all other considerations. The preservation of rigid binaries between “inside” and “outside,” in terms where that which can be seen is that which was present before the lens at the moment of capture of a shot that has now been inscribed as a photograph presented in turn to the scrutiny of spectators external to the event, represents a misunderstanding of both photography and of the photograph alike. The event of photography is never over. It can only be suspended, caught in the anticipation of the next encounter that will allow for its actualization: an encounter that might allow a certain spectator to remark on the excess or lack inscribed in the photograph so as to re-articulate every detail including those that some believe to be fixed in place by the glossy emulsion of the photograph.