According to Edward Weston a fine photograph should contain metaphor. Is this hidden? The definition of a metaphor is something beyond that which is included, beyond the obvious. If your question is literally, hidden meanings . . . they are a private joke upon the critic. That's okay. Sartre wrote in his essays on aesthetics that a painter sees only the surface, the picture within the frame contains all their references. Maybe something could be hidden. When I am commissioned to write a screenplay, I always put something personal in it to see if it plays on in subsequent rewrites and if the actors or the director use it. It's a hidden signature. I has served me well to gain an understanding about my influence upon the industry. A photography could have the same thing. Just my ideas. S. Shapiro ------------------------------------------------------------ (rand flory) photoforum@listserver.isc.rit.edu wrote on Fri May 9 22:15:58 2003: Distinguished Forumeers, Joseph brought up an interesting point when he said, "Stella's 'What you see is what you get' applies here; no need to look for hidden meanings/motivations." Is this really possible? What I mean is that we all bring different backgrounds into this art/craft/discipline known as photography. What we like and dislike stems from an amalgamation of all we have been taught and experienced in life. Our perceptions of beauty and even reality are not all the same. What we choose to photograph, what we choose to include and to exclude, and how we choose to post-process an image all relate to our developed sense of harmony. So . . . can we ever really produce a work that is devoid of hidden meaning, either conscious or subconscious? I eagerly await the thoughts of the Great Minds of the Forum. peace and pixels, rand
