The initial chapters (chapter 1 and chapter 2) of Practices of Looking introduce us to the nature of visual representation of reality. The writer demonstrates how the production, circulation, and consumption of images are inflicted with various social and individual orientations. Images or photographs, even if look objective and neutral, are always captured from certain perspectives and with a certain manifest or latent intentions. That is why images construct reality rather than reflecting it.
Our culture is becoming more and more visual and visual culture makes tremendous influence on the way we see and make meaning of the social practices. Visual culture constructs and is constructed by the broader social and cultural phenomena it inhabits. The basic notions the writers discuss in these two chapters can be narrowed down to: a) the relationship between the images and reality; b) the relationship between culture/myth/ideology/power and images; and c) appropriation and re-appropriation of images by both the producers and consumers. To cut the whole idea short, the acts of coding and decoding meanings through and of visual images is always a matter of negotiation among producers, images, context, and consumers. So, the meaning making process is dependent on all these factors.
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