Photographic Parafictions (An Aside)

One could describe photography theory as a process similar to focusing with a range-finder camera, where one has to take into account the ‘parallax error’ between what one sees through the viewfinder and the image the camera actually records through its lens. The closer one gets to one’s object the greater the disparity and need for parallax correction. Photography theory has always struggled to align the image and the real and to muse on their points of contact. But, in recent decades, tight correspondences have eroded and new ideas have emerged, designating images as fictions or as image objects rather than as images of objects - seeing images as parallel to the world rather than opposed to it. This chapter superimposes two marginal explorations, which taken together aim not at an imaginary essence to be found but a limit-condition, a periphery, to be illuminated. It aims to express verbally and visually the unstable differentiations between photographic image objects and photo-fictional entities. The chapter is an exercise in ‘asideness,' and an experiment in practicing periphery, an exploration of their potential in the context of artistic research.