Here the viewer of the photograph can see something has happened by the presence of the blood on the knife, the severed thumb and the dripping blood that links the other two elements. The assumption can be made that some unknown person cut off his or her thumb whilst attempting to create a halloween pumpkin.
Although fairly obvious in this picture I believe it is important to provide a link between the various parts of the image to allow the viewer to create the story. Disparate objects that have no apparent link can lead to a confused viewer or an assumption wide of the mark.
However the photographer has to assume a certain level of knowledge on the part of the viewer to get his message across. Here we require knowledge that the object bottom left is a thumb (or at least part of a digit), that blood only flows downhill like water unless pumped in some way and that sharp knives can, used improperly, sever a digit.
For those of a squeamish disposition the blood and the thumb are stage props. I still have all my digits!
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