and if so, what form does it take? how can an image overpower the senses? In architecture I feel the representation of the forms is merely the tracing of lines and shapes, which gestures to an existence beyond the illusory -- while remaining apart from the illusory. How would one create an overwhelming image which dissolves the distinction between the self and the other such that a unity is achieved?
Are you referring to architectural photography, or architecture (I assume of buildings, spaces) proper? In case of the latter, I don't see a whole lot happening in Western architecture that I would associated with 'Dynonisian' qualities. Maybe a little rococo or Jugendstil, but pretty much everything that comes after it and has been in vogue over the past 150 years or so seems pretty austere overall and as such the polar opposite of what I'd interpret as Dyonisian.
I feel you may be asking an interesting question, but if you truly want to engage with others on this forum on the matter, I also think you'll have to explain a decent bit about the background of your question and your underlying views/assumptions.
Also, going out on a limb, I'm wondering if you refer to the photograph as the final result as it appears to the viewer, or (also) the process of making it. I can imagine very 'un-Dyonisian' ways of making an image that ends up seeming very Dyonisian (the other way around seems a tad more daunting).
In my case it doesn't and never has. It all depends on how your senses work. I was on a 3 day cruise from Cyprus to the Holy Land ( even the name produces a rye smile on my face) 20 years ago and one day was in Jerusalem. We were shown the stages of Jesus' walk to the cross or what someone says was the location and stages. A great tourist attraction, I suppose. While the group I was with was following and listening to the guide a person who seemed to be dressed in some kind of clerical garb and was not part of the group went into a dead faint, was able to revive himself, walk a few more steps and repeated the dead faint again whereupon he was helped away by some others
An example of his senses being overpowered but none of we tourists appeared to feel anything?
So you either feel it or you don't. Same goes for sensing ghosts doesn't it?