Reading a Photograph

In G. Clarke's ‘How Do We Read A Photograph’ he insists that there is more to a photograph than just a passive act of recognition, we need to read the photograph not just as an image but as text. “The photograph achieves meaning through what has been called ‘photographic discourse’; a language of codes which involves it’s own grammar and syntax”.

“We need to read it as the site of a series of complexities and ambiguities, in which is situated not so much a mirror of the world as our way with the world; what Diane Arbus called ‘the endlessly seductive puzzle of sight’.”

Meaning that there is always more to a photograph than meets the eye. It is helpful to have a historical background of the events being portrayed and even a background to the actual photographer, as they have their own style and way of depicting the sense of image they are trying to portray.

When looking at a photograph we must firstly take in to consideration that the photograph is a product of the photographer, “We need not only to see the image, but also to read it as the active play of a visual language”. Secondly the way the photograph refers to our understanding of the three-dimensional world it depicts. “It thus exists within a wider body of reference and relates to a series of wider histories, at once aesthetics, cultural, and social”.

Roland Barthes distinguished between different elements of a photograph, known as ‘denotative’ and ‘connotative’. The literal meaning and significance of any element in the image, such as a gesture, expression or an object, mean denotative, whereas the imposition of second meaning, such as attitudes, expressions or colours, mean connotative; a series of visual languages or codes reflecting on a wider, underlying process of signification within the culture.

Roland Barthes goes on to identify two distinct factors in our relationship to the photograph; the first is what he calls the ‘studium’ a passive response to a photographs appeal. Then the ‘punctum’, which allows for the formation of critical reading, when a detail within the photograph disturbs the surface, like a cut the viewer will begin the process of opening that space to critical analysis.

We need to have the ability to do these analyses on photographs, unlike a painting in which we can identify with the terms of the paint and the brushstrokes used. A photograph is deceptively invisible, leaving us with just the contents to read the message in which the artist is trying to show us.

Mann, S (1989) Candy Cigarette

The first thing that I notice about this photograph is the oldest girl looking straight back at the camera, holding what looks like a real cigarette. Her posture is something typical of a smoker, the way she holds her stomach which then in turn supports her left arm, from where she is supposedly smoking. This leads me to believe that she is merely mimicking her opinion of a smoker. Her expression is dull and unimpressed, but at what, her mother (the photographer) trying to get the right shot, or is it to portray smoking as an unexciting thing to do.

Moving around the picture both the other children are looking away from the oldest girl, behind her left shoulder the young boy is on stilts. This makes me think that the other two children are either keeping watch whilst the girl smoking’s, to make sure no one comes and catches her, or they are unimpressed with what she is doing and doesn’t want to be a part of it.  I think that if I had a better knowledge of Sally Mann, I would be able to pick up on more meanings in this photograph.