ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes a theoretical framework that is appropriate to the practice of photography. This theoretical framework for the photograph applies more to the pre-production of photography and may be linked to the intention of the photographer or the characteristics of the photograph that may be sought by the viewer. The chapter examines the characteristics that are unique to photographic/lens-based systems of representation and introduces the aesthetic concerns of realism, formalism and expressionism. Realism is the notion that the photograph offers a straightforward transparent view of the world, subscribing to a tradition that considered pictures to offer a window on the world. In this context the photograph may express the photographers' emotional feelings or a strongly held political viewpoint or social comment. The chapter focuses on some of the factors involved in the photographers' pre-visualisation of the photograph: to be able to predict how the scene, as viewed in real life, will later appear as a flat two-dimensional image.
