Interpellation

You are flipping through Facebook and a photo is displayed on your news feed. Instead of passing by without a second though, you stop and focus on the photo. You have just been interpellated by that image- to be interpellated by an image is to be "hailed"(103) by the elements, qualities, and subject of the image. Interpellation is thus, less about the context of the image itself, and more about "creating a relationship between the viewer and the image alone than it is about situating the viewer in a field  of meaning production..."(103). Rather, what is it that draws the viewer to the image, what "interpellates"a person to an image? A color, a texture, the connotative meaning perhaps? This, as Sturken and Cartwright would agree, is subjective, because "the meaning of individual human subject is not universal but both historically and culturally contingent" (102).
In this photo below, I have taken a photo during a thunderstorm in my hometown. It was a storm that happened when I was driving with my friends, it rained briefly, but continued to thunder and lightning heavily for hours. It was so bright that we pulled into a parking lot to take some photos.

This is a photo I happened to take at the moment some lightning occurred. My gaze is naturally drawn to the lightning, and the outlines and shadows that it creates within the cloud. From this, there is an insinuation of space in between the clouds, and gives hard lines to the outlines of the cloud, when really it is gaseous and there are no such lines.
I am interpellated by this image not only for the image itself, which I find very visually interesting, but for the memories that it draws back. Later, the rain returned, and me and my friend all  got caught in the rain because we were taking pictures. We all got soaked and had to wait in her car in the parking lot because the rain was so heavy we couldn't see the roads. This knowledge I has provided me with a context for the occurrence of the photo- much more than most people know. Due to the background and the relationship I have with the photo, it interpellates me because I have the ability to recognize myself "as a member of the world of meaning (103)." Without me, this photo is simply a picture of some rain cloud an lightning, but for me, I am able to interpellate the image and "hailed" with a meaning that it may not be  exactly like anybody else.