Behind the scenes – William Greiner discusses his new book Show Tell

In his 30-year-career, William Greiner has taken thousands upon thousands of pictures, and looked at even more. He’s usually pretty good about picking up tidbits of information and general ideas.

But what if you’re looking at a photo and have no information, no credits, no title, nothing to guide your thoughts?

That’s the exact idea Greiner had when preparing his new book Show & Tell. The book combines Grenier’s photography with made-up narratives. Select writers were given no background information, just a photo, and asked to create the story.

Greiner and a few of the writers will be on hand to discuss the book Thursday at 6 p.m. at Glassell Gallery (Map it!). The exhibition will feature the photos and text from the book as well as a reading, followed by a book signing.

The idea for the book came after Greiner and a friend were looking at a photo, which featured a doll, a daughter’s hand on the doll, and the mother’s hands on the daughter. Greiner thought the photo represented life cycles, femininity and child rearing. His friend thought it was about something darker—abuse.

“She just said some things that surprised me and made me realize that we all bring our notions and prejudices to what we see in the world,” he says. “It’s this exercise in thinking about art and pictures in terms of realizing that people bring their own experiences to everything we view, and it colors that interpretation.”

When Greiner started getting copy back, some of those interpretations were surprising. Some weren’t. His friend and writer/photographer John Ramsay Miller, recruited a few mystery and thriller writers. A few other writers came from the advertising world. Anyone could participate, and there were no wrong answers. To Greiner, that’s the beauty of the concept.

“I picked pictures that lent themselves to narrative,” he says. “There are people in the pictures doing something and you don’t know what they’re doing. They’re looking through a window or shooting a gun, and you can’t see what they’re shooting at. I purposely chose those pictures.”