Judith Butler: Torture and the Ethics of Photography

"... interpretation is not to be conceived restrictively in terms of subjective act. Rather, interpretation takes place by virtue of the structuring constraints of genre and form on the communicability of effect - and so sometimes takes place against one's will or, indeed, in spite of oneself. Thus, it is not just that the photographer and/or the viewer actively and deliberately interpret, but that the photograph itself becomes a structuring scene of interpretation - and one that may unsettle both maker and viewer in its turn"