Dr. Hend Ben Mansour
Department of English, Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities, University of Manouba, Manouba, Tunisia
By its very nature, the photographic image is dialectical. It relies not only on the interaction between light and darkness to come to life, but it also engages in continuous dialogues with its subject, its creator, and, importantly, its audience. Upon materializing as an object to be seen, possessed, distributed, and destroyed, the photographic image enters the realm of representation, physically highlighting its duality. On the one hand, the photographic image is necessarily an image of something that a photographer chooses to capture, to freeze in time and space, and to exhibit to the world. It serves as a re-presentation of what already exists, detached from the constraints of its temporal and spatial existence and reproduced infinitely for countless observers. On the other hand, due to the photographic image’s ability to migrate seamlessly across geographic borders and medium boundaries—unlike the sometimes immobile photographed object—it claims to faithfully represent the absent object. Thus, the photograph is perceived as the closest and most trustworthy representation of the object of sight. It is at this intersection that the photograph’s nature and its power intertwine, creating a complex dialogue between representation and documentation, illustrating opinions and providing evidence, and reflecting reality and reflecting upon it. This work proposes to study the dialogical relationship between visual reproduction and visual dominance through the analysis of several photographs representing diverse subjects.
Keywords: Photography, Representation, Dialogue, Power
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The 10th International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2025, Ahwaz.
