What do images mean?

The following is from an Art of Noticing (by Rob Walker) newsletter.  I'm thinking about it in relation to George Saunders' exercises in A Swim in a Pond at Night about how images have meanings on their own... that the human brain MAKES things mean things (there's a section about a picture of two trees, one healthy, one struggling... that our brain MAKES MEANING out of it).  I feel something similar happens with stock photography in both of the suggestions that Walker makes below (looking for images to fit AND looking AT images) I realize this sounds like a mundane topic, but I actually find stock photos completely fascinating. Specifically, I enjoy the odd interplay of idea, language, and image that the process of seeking out the proper visual entails. In this case I used the service Pexels, searching several terms: “scene,” “noticing,” “observation,” “spy,” and finally “story,” before I settled on this as the best image to go with what I’d written. The photographers who distribute their work through Pexels are of course going through the opposite process: Trying to encapsulate or expand the meaning of the images they’ve created through tag words. (The image I picked via my “story” search is also marked data, eyeglasses, literature, school, text, and wisdom, among other things.) Perhaps this curious image/word dance could inspire a new way to observe the world. Consider some concept — peace, connection, curiosity, whatever — and over the next week, look out for images you could capture that would express the idea. Could be something you spot on a walk, or maybe even something in your home. Whatever you see, wherever you see it. The point is really to give a fresh jolt to how you perceive what’s around you — a novel lens on the familiar. (And you could of course choose weirder, knottier, or more obscure concepts to illustrate.) You could also try something like the opposite: Consider images you’ve already captured, and get creative about what concepts they could represent in an imaginary stock-visual service. This could even be a game, with two or more people dreaming up concepts for each other’s shots.