All the previous ones come, so to speak, with some baggage attached. Knowing more or less about the context affects our response to them. However most of my favourite photographs do not come trailing this sort of stuff. Here is one example. We can enjoy this without knowing anything about it.

Of course we recognise some things and are surprised by them more or less depending on our own experiences. This lithe supple old guy enjoying life in the sunshine is an image that persists, as some things persist that we have seen in real life.

This type of photography doesn't try and tell, or show us something important, or illustrate or make a point. It tells us this is what Willy Ronis saw and liked, or thought interesting. When you view an extended body of work of a photographer like this you start to think you have an idea of his view of life. Might be contrived of course, but it says something about the photographer that the previous images, Adams apart probably, do not tell us.

Photo credit: Ansel Adams

I'm a big fan of Ansel Adams, especially the finished prints, some of which I've had the pleasure of seeing in the flesh. Probably among the most beautiful graphic objects I've come across.

I've never been to Yosemite valley, but if the name crops up I immediately associate it with Adams' images, and unless I remind myself, I'll imagine that is exactly what it looks like. I'd be disappointed if I ever went of course because the images are painstakingly rendered according to the photographers vision, quite apart from waiting or knowing at exactly what time to get the lighting and atmospherics right. And of course it wouldn't be in B+W

So again, there is something illusory in these photos. Now for me that's ok, because I understand them, and Adams other work, as his response to what he saw, and not an attempt to mirror reality. It might seem to be straining a point with photographs which are not really intended to be documentary, but think about other aspects of the world that we know only through photographs - things which we may accept as true knowledge.

Maybe some people haven't seen the original.

© Nick Ut

It has been artfully cropped to produce a "better" composition, but also to remove the image of a cameraman reloading or changing lenses as the tragedy runs past him. It perfectly symbolises for me the role of the photographer as he becomes the proxy for our voyeurism. I guess the media were also a bit worried that it might show them in an unsympathetic light.

However the photo has become the topic of some controversy, and as well as an icon of the times it represents, is also an emblem of some problems and issues that can arise with the taking, interpretation and usage of photographs. It is subtly controversial I would say.

It was taken as the last shot in a series of 6 shot by Dorothea Lange in 1936 as part of a survey commissioned by the FSA to document and highlight the plight of poor farm workers during the depression of the 1930's. You can see the full sequence here. See how this photograph differs from from the preceding ones. It is quite strikingly composed in comparison, and the effect, for me at least, is greatly changed. Enhanced? Manipulated? I don't know, and Lange's own comments don't suggest it was wilfully composed to produce a particular effect. And what if it was? The whole purpose of the series was to exercise public opinion, and sympathy. It was successful - but how about the use of the subjects? As you might expect, many years later journalism tracked down the woman, Florence Thompson, and asked here what she thought about it all. I won't go into that here - but a web search of this topic will provide you with hours of happy armchair debate.

Basically, the controversy surrounds photography and propaganda, the use and exploitation of subjects, and the distortion of peoples awareness of what happens in the world. Now I said earlier that I think this controversy, inherent in a lot of photography, is quite subtle in this case, but instructive nonetheless. And I don't mind the word propaganda because although it is usually thought of in a negative sense, it can also be said to be useful in furthering worthy ends. End justifying means?

Although Sontag comes in for some criticism by singling out this photo in one of her essays in "On Photography" she has some valid points relating to all of this. She dislikes that photography tends to beautify everything it lays it's hands on, and thus levels our view of the world. You can see what she means in this photo. I personally find that the preceding photos say more to me about the circumstances because I don't get distracted by thinking "what a beautiful photo". On the subject of propaganda and awareness, she also makes the point (not sure if she was the first to do so) that our perceptions of the Vietnam war are greatly influenced by the proliferation of images, and those of the Soviet Gulag by the almost complete absence of any photographs. Made me think.