You read meaning into individual photographs. The picture may serve as a trigger but you are the judge.

In the photograph at the left the literal depiction of the scene takes a back seat to impression. The pale, unfocused background suggests the location is the ocean — any ocean really — and the blurred figures give the image an Everyman character.

The top image on this page shows Ross Bay under a heavy September fog. It is the kind of atmosphere that forms when nights begin to get cold. It is quite literal in visually describing that phenomenon. However, the first picture in the group directly above this block of text shows how mood is far more important than representation. The second image of a ferry is more straightforward, although it does ask where the people have all gone. The third is a study in life, death and renewal. It is symbolic.

The bottom three photographs above deal with our response to colour but the middle image introduces false colours into the mix. Things are not always as they seem.

The takeaway here is that although photography is a mechanical method of recording light, shadow and colour, the choices of subject, composition and post processing will greatly influence how the image is perceived. Of course, when the viewer is absorbed into this mix the opportunity for a picture to have multiple, and sometimes opposing meanings, is greatly multiplied.