ABSTRACT
Many millions of words have now been written about the deconstruction of texts, or the unconscious processes of the interpellated viewers therein.2 Because this has privileged only particular aspects of representation, it might perhaps be useful to try to shift our focus to another link in the chain of the ways meanings are produced within the signifying process: to the time of taking the photograph, and to the relationship between photographer and subject. In this way we can shift the emphasis from the process of viewing to the process of being photographed, the meanings generated there, and how they are negotiated. We need to investigate ways of showing how, as ‘split subjects’, we can and do inhabit different (and often contradictory) positions within different discourses at different times.
