What is a Photograph?

So, what is a photograph?
This a question I hope I never completely answer. My short answer: -a symbol of other symbols. The long answer: -more.

On one of my Facebook posts, an artist I admire wrote a very kind comment today that started me pondering this question again for the umpteenth, millionth time. The photograph he was commenting on was simple and blatantly about a complex, deep subject (below). And it was more.

I explained that, for me, it was just a crack, a tiny peephole, in an otherwise solid unpenetrable wall. I referenced Leonard Cohen's song Anthem in which my favorite stanza is:

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."  -Leonard Cohen

A photograph is like an iceberg floating in the ocean. We all know this analogy; the visible above -and the hidden below. If I could fly overhead and look down, the visible iceberg would be my photograph. And then, here is the crucial part: The "me" that looks downward at the photograph/iceberg, just like the iceberg, also has a hidden reality of which I am unaware.

If I choose to, the hidden part of the iceberg can be used as a mirror to reflect the hidden part of "me" as I permit it to be seen. For it is only visible when I project onto it from my unconscious mind.

Much like Freud's use of dreams: "royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind" Freud (1900)