The Picture Problem Response

In “The Picture Problem” Malcolm Gladwell discusses the inherently erroneous nature of human interpretation of photography. While Gladwell’s discussion is not a new one, he examines it through the lens of photography’s personal and political implications in medical and military use. Even across a wide variety of uses, the problem of human interpretation has profound effect. Gladwell cites several studies across both fields that point towards drastic margins of error in cases where human lives hang in the balance. His findings show that our blind reliance of photographic imagery is perhaps misguided. After all, cameras are human controlled which leads a distorted depiction before the shutter is even pressed. After the image is produced, it needs to be interpreted. Gladwell’s article makes the point that even with the astounding advances in imaging technology, human interpretation is still severely limited and perhaps even contaminating to the purity of a photograph. However, this raises the question of what is a photograph without human interpretation. Is the fact that photography is so relatable in its supposedly faithful depiction of what we see the reason that it dominates our visual culture? Is photography inherently flawed or is human interpretation really that far off? For me, it is a combination of both. Photography is a cultural institution that we are not raised to question, especially outside of academic and art-historical contexts, and thus our interpretative sense is unrefined. This argument calls back to mid-twentieth century conceptual work by artists Rene Magritte and Joseph Kosuth who questioned truth in objecthood, reproduction, and definition. Gladwell questions where truth resides in a photographic image, if at all, and to me his findings indicate a problem not in photography or its interpretation, but in our reliance on it.