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- The gallery owner told us there were many layers of meaning. This picture is about class war.
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- When something tickles my eye, I take a picture. Meaning is assigned later.
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- Covered vehicles represent mysteries. A futile attempt to fight entropy. A false sense of security. Did you notice the German Shepherd on the porch?
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- Is this covered car photo more idyllic than the last two? Can an apartment complex be idyllic? If I say the words apartment complex again, does that help you feel anything?
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- When you’re taking a photo of a pet hospital with the address numbers 666 and red shopping carts go by in a truck in the foreground what does that mean?
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- Even a simple one-liner can have layers of meaning applied. This large ad is on the side of a beauty supply store.
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- A lowered classic Lincoln in front of a car repair shop. Is it just a cool car, or can you find other signifiers?
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- Covered car pictures make me think of Robert Frank. And didn’t he say that no photos have meaning anymore? Or was that Baudrillard?
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- But surely there’s something going on in this photo of a stroller on the roof of a car with a broken window across the street from a U-Haul facility?
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- In an instant, you’ve intuitively understood that this lamp painted like a mushroom is playing on the idea of man vs. nature.
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- Or maybe it’s about video games. Or some sort of Lewis Carroll reference.
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- Guardian lions date back to the Han dynasty, even if the door is from Home Depot.
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- A color photo of a Bowie album printed on a postcard for an art show and then held in front of a 70′s black and white photo of a Chinese-American holding the same Bowie album. Half of the resulting photo is desaturated to add another layer of meaning.
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- The gallery owner said San Francisco’s Chinatown is fake because it was designed by an American architect.
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- We went looking for answers at the Buddha Lounge.
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- When most people look at this picture, what do they see? Is there a subconscious understanding of a deeper meaning that could be drawn out with the right caption, or are they just cakes?
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- If this photo was taken by someone famous in the 70′s on color film and the printed with a special process and put in a museum where someone said it was important would that change how you felt about it? What if I just posted it to Flickr from my phone instead?
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- If I told you the chair was on the border of Chinatown and a wealthy white neighborhood, and I tilted the frame, would the photo have a different meaning?
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- After Frank, after Eggleston, what can any of us do in the Internet age to make a layered, meaningful picture.
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- Maybe layered meanings are only for academia and museums. For the masses, photography is now predominantly about social currency. I mourn this transformation by showing you a photo of discarded bbq coals in the street.
