the joke has been made before about lord henry's collection of dorian photographs reducing by ten because the censorship deemed him having seventeen more decent than the twenty-seven he had in the original manuscript..... but.......
something something about the symbolism of basil likely having countless depictions of dorian, many wonderful & intricate or even very simple little sketches, but all drawn by the human hand, connected with the eyes who look upon his object with adoration — and henry having spent the one month(!) he had known dorian up until this point also amassing pictures of him, but these are photographs. and unless harry is a hobby photographer himself which i don't think is mentioned anywhere, that likely means that he is paying to have pictures taken of dorian by a photographer. this means that he might be in the room when they are taken, he might be directing, but there is a severe lack of connection there. there is no adoration, only consumption. i don't know if wilde ever touches up on that contrast later through this specific metaphor but. that goes hand in hand with the short story i wrote once with basil telling henry to get a photograph of him taken because he refuses to paint his portrait because he deems henry just as shallow as a photograph.
