[求助]一个小句子

Picture-taking is a technique both for annexing the objective world and for expressing the singular self. Photographs depict objective realities that already exist, though only the camera can disclose them. And they depict an individual photographer’s temperament, discovering itself through the camera’s cropping of reality. That is, photography has two antithetical ideals: in the first, photography is about the world and the photographer is a mere observe who counts for little; but in the second, photography is the instrument of intrepid, questing subjectivity and the photographer is all.

                                                                      ---------------GRE NO 题NO 2-2 SECTION B

请问第一句话怎么翻译呀？我看不懂这里的annexing & sigular self在这个句子的意思.

Thanks, 版主。