About 10 years ago we started sending each other images, back and forth, via email. Each photograph had to respond to the one just received. We have so far exchanged over 260 photographs, sharing snippets of family life, abstraction, travels, loss and humor. When we started, we had no particular plan but rather we were curious about the idea of photography as dialogue and we wanted to see how our visual conversation would develop. A similar sense of open-ended inquiry informs this special issue which does not present a single resolved idea but explores the emergent, messy and indeterminate ways that images and image-making serve to facilitate – and obscure – dialogue. It is concerned with the potential and limits of photography as a dialogical medium and proposes an idea of dialogic photography that centres around the encounters, exchanges and negotiations that happen with, through and around images. Writers like Ariella Azoulay and others see photography as an ongoing event involving multiple participants. They call for a renewed articulation of photography that moves us away from a singular, vertical focus on the work of specific photographers and seeks to understand photography as a ‘certain form of human being-with-others in which the camera or photography are implicated’ (Azoulay 2012). Photography as dialogue focuses on photography as a social, networked, communicative and political activity enmeshed in webs of power, resistance and agency through which we assert and explore a sense of self and relation to others. This dialogical potential has always been part of photography but has so far been under-explored as a framework for understanding how photography acts and mediates human relations. This special issue is concerned with how images and image-making can enable exchanges in which positions are explored and possibly challenged and transformed. It begins with the idea that ‘a photograph is a product of an encounter and the start of a conversation’ (Palmer 2017). From this we ask: what is particular about the ‘deep and interesting talk’ (Harper 2002) that happens through and with images? Bringing together disparate projects and perspectives, this special issue is less interested in the image itself and more with what arises through and around the image, with the relations that extend out from a photograph.

中文翻译：

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作为对话的摄影

大约 10 年前，我们开始通过电子邮件来回发送彼此的图像。每张照片都必须对刚收到的照片做出回应。到目前为止，我们已经交换了 260 多张照片，分享了家庭生活、抽象、旅行、失落和幽默的片段。刚开始的时候，我们没有特别的计划，但我们对摄影作为对话的想法很好奇，我们想看看我们的视觉对话会如何发展。类似的开放式探究的感觉告诉了这个特殊的问题，它没有提出一个单一的已解决的想法，而是探索图像和图像制作有助于促进——模糊——对话的新兴、混乱和不确定的方式。它关注摄影作为对话媒介的潜力和局限性，并提出了一种以相遇为中心的对话摄影理念，与图像、通过图像以及围绕图像发生的交流和谈判。Ariella Azoulay 等作家将摄影视为一项涉及多个参与者的持续事件。他们呼吁重新阐明摄影，让我们摆脱对特定摄影师作品的单一、垂直关注，并试图将摄影理解为“与相机或摄影有关的某种人类与他人的形式” （阿祖莱 2012 年）。作为对话的摄影将摄影作为一种社会的、网络化的、交流的和政治的活动，它被权力、抵抗和代理的网络所包围，我们通过它来断言和探索自我意识和与他人的关系。这种对话潜力一直是摄影的一部分，但作为理解摄影如何作用和调解人际关系的框架，迄今为止尚未得到充分探索。本期特刊关注的是图像和图像制作如何促进交流，在这些交流中，探索、可能挑战和转变立场。它始于“照片是相遇的产物和对话的开始”的想法（Palmer 2017）。由此我们问：通过图像和图像发生的“深刻而有趣的谈话”（Harper 2002）有什么特别之处？将不同的项目和观点结合在一起，这个特刊对图像本身不太感兴趣，而更关注图像中和周围出现的东西，以及从照片中延伸出来的关系。本期特刊关注的是图像和图像制作如何促进交流，在这些交流中，探索、可能挑战和转变立场。它始于“照片是相遇的产物和对话的开始”的想法（Palmer 2017）。由此我们问：通过图像和图像发生的“深刻而有趣的谈话”（Harper 2002）有什么特别之处？将不同的项目和观点结合在一起，这个特刊对图像本身不太感兴趣，而更关注图像中和周围出现的东西，以及从照片中延伸出来的关系。本期特刊关注的是图像和图像制作如何促进交流，在这些交流中，探索、可能挑战和转变立场。它始于“照片是相遇的产物和对话的开始”的想法（Palmer 2017）。由此我们问：通过图像和图像发生的“深刻而有趣的谈话”（Harper 2002）有什么特别之处？将不同的项目和观点结合在一起，这个特刊对图像本身不太感兴趣，而更关注图像中和周围出现的东西，以及从照片中延伸出来的关系。它始于“照片是相遇的产物和对话的开始”的想法（Palmer 2017）。由此我们问：通过图像和图像发生的“深刻而有趣的谈话”（Harper 2002）有什么特别之处？将不同的项目和观点结合在一起，这个特刊对图像本身不太感兴趣，而更关注图像中和周围出现的东西，以及从照片中延伸出来的关系。它始于“照片是相遇的产物和对话的开始”的想法（Palmer 2017）。由此我们问：通过图像和图像发生的“深刻而有趣的谈话”（Harper 2002）有什么特别之处？将不同的项目和观点结合在一起，这个特刊对图像本身不太感兴趣，而更关注图像中和周围出现的东西，以及从照片中延伸出来的关系。