This richly evocative study of photography has two major emphases. The first is that the language of description (be it title, caption, or text) is deeply implicated in how a viewer looks at photographs. The more detailed the description, the more precisely the viewer’s observation is directed. This leads to the second emphasis, that the use of a photograph determines its meaning. The imaginative use of photographs as metaphor is explored in works of literature by Marcel Proust, Robert Lowell, Roland Barthes, and Robert Musil.