Modern cognitive (and brain) research offers some interesting views on how our visual system works, for example how horizontal and vertical lines are recognized, how contrast plays a role, how movement (real or implied) is recognized, and so on. (Edit: Or symmetry.)
You could say that we are on the verge of understanding how we see the world, and it is a fascinating machinery indeed what we have in our head.
Today I thought whether some of the pleasure we get from looking at photographs stems from the way they engage our visual system - perhaps there is a similar kind of effect as when you get physical exercise, but in this case from exercising the brain.
Another thing is that perhaps some day we know in detail how a specific photograph works, and this leads to opporturnities for the computer-generation of photographs with impact. Like a super-photoshop...
Another view on this provided by the French sociologist Roland Barthes in the book Camera Lucida (originally La Chambre Claire, also translated into Finnish as Valoisa huone).
I haven't yet read the book, but I made a reservation at the local library when I saw Markus Spring writing about it: "Also his emphasis on things not plainly visible in an image, yet connected through the knowledge of the observer, is an interesting aspect – and hard to take into consideration when creating an image."
This seems to be an interesting approach to think about, but I have to see whether I can understand what the book is about. Some socioligists are just too obscure for me to bother reading.
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