ABSTRACT
T he post-production aspects of photographic communication are concerned withthings that can be done to the photograph once it has been taken and processedto change or enhance its meaning. As mentioned in earlier chapters, photographs are taken in a particular context and there is a strong dependency on the knowledge of this context which determines how the final image is understood by the viewer. In the case of the documentary photograph we find ourselves looking at a visual display from which we are able to make inferences regarding the subject matter. We make assumptions about the events that we see in the photograph and draw (hopefully the appropriate) conclusions from the image. We assume that our conclusions, derived from our retrospection and anticipations which have been engendered by the photograph, in some way concur with the factual circumstances that brought about the moment of the photograph. We place faith in the image itself and its subsequent editorial context that it conforms to the natural or original course of events. And this is what we described in the last chapter as the implied history of the photograph.
