Understanding the photographic image

This article elaborates on Barlow's distinction between images before the eye (pictures) and images behind the eye (mental images). The key focus of this article is on representational competence with respect to the common properties of pictures and, in particular, photographs. Despite a number of theoretical proposals to account for aspects of photographic understanding, no comprehensive or integrated theory at present claims any consensus. By the nature and variety of photographic practices, it is unlikely that there soon will be.