I took this photograph during an exhibition visit with members of RPS Women in Photography. I asked three of the women who had joined me to stand in front of a photographic artwork showing passengers in train windows. It was fun, and everyone enjoyed taking part.
I wasn’t trying to make a statement about representation or the act of looking. I simply enjoyed the opportunity to make the picture together.
When I later shared the photograph, it prompted a different reading: the relationship between the women in the gallery and the people pictured behind them, and the layers of looking within the image.
That difference between my intention and another person’s interpretation interests me. A photograph can suggest things its maker never consciously planned.
As I begin my MA, I want to leave room for that uncertainty rather than invent an explanation after the event.
A question to return to
Does the meaning of a photograph belong to the photographer, the people in it, or the person looking at it?
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