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We live in an age where images proliferate as a tool to express concepts. Pictures are used extensively in movies, videos, magazines, websites, and books to get an idea across to the viewer. Conceptual photographs often appear in instructional presentations and textbooks on any subject matter you can imagine. Almost everyone has a digital camera of some kind and is taking shots to portray something they find important.
However, while our educational system emphasizes the refinement of conceptual thinking via language and semantics, it pays relatively little attention to the development of visual literacy - i.e. how we create and analyze images as expressions of an idea. Viewed from the standpoint of psychoanalytic theory, our culture focuses more on refining the verbal skills of secondary process thinking rather than exploring the visual language of primary process thinking, as we do in dream interpretation.
As a psychoanalytic psychologist, conceptual photographer, and professor who often makes use of pictures in my presentations, I would like to share some of my thoughts on the powerful conscious and unconscious aspects of ideas expressed via images. These insights from conceptual photography can be of service to all types of educators who intend to use pictures to convey an idea. They will also be useful to clinicians who wish to use their own photographic images for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
The conceptual photographer strives to bring a message to the viewer. It might be a political statement, a social commentary, or, in the case of the work I often do, the portrayal of a psychological idea about people, relationships, and emotions. The viewers' task is to figure out what the message is. The photographer encourages people to ask themselves, “What does this photo mean?”