Exercise 1: Denotation and Connotation
Part 1
- Read the Documentary Deconstruction source text and engage with the research task at the end of the document.
- Add reflective evidence of your reading and watching to your learning log.
Part 2
- Choose a suitable image for each of the 4 genres.
From your reading of the Bate Photography Theory chapter, make your own analysis of your chosen images including both the denotation and connotations of your selected images
Listening to Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson and Philip Lorca diCorcia, and how they push the medium of photography and play with genres forced me to reappraise and think about:
- Images as documents of truth-what you see is not always what you see-there are meanings beyond truthful reproduction
- The definition of documentary photography as an objective method of capturing the world, devoid of the author’s explicit intervention and its role as factual evidence of social issues, is too narrow a view, especially when you consider the role of the artist and the viewer in determining meaning.
Jeff Wall talks about an image he made ‘Tattoos and Shadows’ and the inspiration for it coming from a scene he saw of some young people under a tree, all with tattoos and the dappled light and shadow across some of the people. He remarks that it was a beautiful scene. He didn’t photograph them and got around to recreating the scene a year later-a scene he feels is ‘faithful’ to what he saw. What I find interesting here are the detonation and connotation aspects of his process. He feels he is faithful (to the original inspiration) as he includes a tree (not the original but a more interesting one), some people (thought he reduces from 4 to 3), and recreates the shadow effect. What’s important for him is the freedom to add additional meanings or interpretations beyond its literal depiction. So rather than be ‘constrained’ by the original scene, he recreates another that communicates the ‘beauty’ he experienced when he first saw it. The final image is a photographic artefact based on the articulation of Jeff Wall’s experience.
Philip Lorca DiCorcia comments that ‘ a person’s interiority is very different to their exterior appearance and to some degree life is a performance’.
Talking about Philip Locca DiCorcia, Dr Sam Lakey talks about his work in terms of how he changed how we think about photography. She opined that ‘there is an idea that in photography it captures a moment of truth photography and has a special and privileged relationship to the real, theses photographs operate to subvert that completely. Talking about his work DeCorcia comments ‘I don’t really find them; I choose the place, in different ways,the subject matter, and then I try to put it together with lights and what I call dramatising elements, and these are what make seem like a narrative’
Dr Sam Lakey talks about DiCorcia’s approach and how ‘he gives the viewer a great of authority over the works, he sets up a relationship between the photographer and the sitter that we are not really used to, he’s not interested in privileging this relationship, instead, there is a type of distance between the two, and this distance means you the viewer can insert yourself in relation to that person’
Gregory Crewdson, talking about his approach says ‘I don’t have a direct relationship to a camera-I never have- I’m just not that type of photographer’ and that Light is important and I always want certain type of ambience….Light is something you can choreograph in a way.
I feel their images are real works of art. Constructed with a purpose and codes of use that go way beyond just lifting up the camera, composing and pressing the shutter. All 3 artists creatively use the elements of detonation to drive and creatively connotate a deeper message or feeling within their images. The viewer’s interpretation plays a much more elevated role than, say, in a ‘traditional’ documentary where an image is present as an artefact of truth.
Part 2
Choose a suitable image for each of the 4 genres.From your reading of the Bate Photography Theory chapter, make your own analysis of your chosen images including both the denotation and connotations of your selected images
In chapter one of Photography the Key Concepts by David Bates, he discusses the development of theoretical and analytical frameworks and the key concepts that have shaped the understanding of photography as both an art form and social practice. They also serve to help us ‘read’ photgraphs and unearth deeper meanings.
These frameworks and theories include semiotics, helping peel away the layers of meaning within photograph through denotation which provides the basic, literal content of the image (what it is), and connotation which provides additional (more subjective) meaning by evoking emotions, ideas, and cultural associations.
Bates also discusses codes– Cultural, Visual, and Technical codes and emphasises that reading photographs involves decoding these codes to uncover the layered meanings within an image, helping viewers move beyond the surface appearance of a photograph and engage with its deeper social, historical, and ideological messages. This enables a richer and more nuanced understanding of photographs.
The first image (documentary) above by Dorothea Lange—White Angel Breadline, San Francisco, California, 1933—shows many men huddled and waiting, with one man facing in the opposite direction, leaning on a fence with a metal cup between his hands. In the top right, there is some writing on a board, and the dress of the people situates it in the 1930s. This is what it denotes.
Looking deeper (stopping to consider the image within Bates frameworks) I feel a sense of alienation for the man facing away from the crowd. My own personal history helps me emphatise with his situation and I find myself wondering if he had given up on his situation, the image (for me) communicates a sense of hopelessness.
When I consider the historical context of the image and the reputation of the photographer, I find that this also influences how I read and take the photograph seriously. The connotative meanings touch upon historical, social and emotional meanings.
The second image, a portrait by Yousuf Karsh of Wintson Churchill moved me in ways that surprised me. This was related to the connotative and cultural meanings of the image. For many Britons Churchill is seen as great statesman and hero who helped the allies win the second world war. He was these things for sure, but I am Irish and Churchill played a pivotal role in Irish history and his actions while minister for war, laid the foundation for the hardline IRA philosophy that plagued Irish society with devastating effecting during the troubles of the 70s and 80s. this colors how I see the image, and is entirely subjective.
Condisering the visual and technical codes employed, I see the use of light to emphasise both his face and hands (something Karash employed in his portraits as he believed it was mark of a sitter personality)
Image 3 is a landscape by Ansel Adams. It’s a black and white image of mountains , tress and sky. Technically its impressive in terms of its of black and white development craft-Adams employs the use of dodging and burning to amplify the contrast and light areas of the image-helping the viewers eye to the mountain.
When I look at the image the repuation of Adams precedes him and his images and so I’m led to believe it must be a good image. Although I can appreciate the craft of the image (especially the development and manipulation of the film), I dont feel any emotional connection along the lines of Barthes ‘punctum’ (element of a photograph that pierces or wounds the viewer, creating a personal and emotional impact).
Image 4 Dust Breeding by Man Ray is an image of a sheet of glass that lay in a studio and gathered dust for over a year. It was photographed by Man Ray and subsequently became part of an installation by Marcel Duchamps- he wiped the glass clean expect for part of it and he preserved some of the dust mites.
On face value its an image of a dusty sheet of glass and when I saw it first I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about as its afamous image that have many 1000s of words written about it. Howver, If I dig into it and consider it in terms of Bates’ codes I begin to uncover a deeper meaning that includes:
Innovative Techniques-Man Ray’s experimental approach to photography, using techniques like solarization and abstraction, is exemplified in this work, as is the Surrealist context;the image was created in 1920, during the height of the Surrealist movement, of which Man Ray was a prominent figure. He is known to have explored themes of chance, abstraction, and the unconscious. In this image he also touches upon the ideas of time, decay, and transformation, themes central to Surrealism. The accumulation of dust over time contrasts with the static nature of the artwork, invoking a sense of transience.
So yes, the context has given me a deeper meaning about what the image is about, but as a document, it doesnt do anything for me-leaves me with a big ‘so what’.
References
Bates, David, 2019, Photgraphy The Key Concepts (2nd ed),London, Routledge,
Photographers in Focus, Gregory Crewsdon, https://www.nowness.com/series/photographers-in-focus/gregory-crewsdon (accessed 28/05/2024)
Philip-Lorca diCorcia: Photographs 1975–2012: https://hepworthwakefield.org/whats-on/philip-lorca-dicorcia-photographs-1975-2012/ (accessed 03/06/2024)
Wall, Geoff, I begin by not photographing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yG2k4C4zrU (accessed 29/05/2024)