• Symbolism: Objects, people, or scenes are chosen for their symbolic meaning. Each element in the photograph represents something greater than itself, such as ideas related to human nature, society, or ethics.
• Narrative Quality: Allegorical photographs often imply a narrative or message that viewers must piece together by interpreting the symbolic elements, creating a richer and more complex experience.
• Layered Meanings: The photograph works on multiple levels, where the surface content may be clear, but a deeper interpretation reveals underlying themes or messages

In photography, the Anthropocene refers to a focus on the current geological age marked by human impact on the Earth. Photographers document how human activity reshapes landscapes, affects wildlife, and drives environmental changes, using imagery to highlight the tension between nature and human development and to raise awareness of our influence on the planet.

• cultural background,
• personal experiences
• socio-political context.

Connotation in photography aids visual literacy, helping viewers interpret images based on their understanding of visual cues, symbols, and conventions,  allowing viewers to engage critically with its underlying messages, themes, and cultural implications, enriching their interpretation and appreciation of the photograph.

• Natural Landscape: Focuses on untouched natural scenes such as mountains, forests, deserts, oceans, and fields, highlighting the beauty and majesty of nature.
• Urban Landscape: Captures cityscapes, streets, and architectural features, often emphasizing the structure and design of urban areas or the interaction between people and their environment.
• Abstract Landscape: Uses creative techniques to depict landscapes in a non-literal way, emphasizing shapes, patterns, colors, and textures to create a unique artistic interpretation.
• Seascape: A subcategory of natural landscapes that focuses on oceans, seas, and coastal scenes, often capturing the movement and energy of water.
• Aerial Landscape: Photographs taken from an elevated perspective, such as from airplanes or drones, to offer a bird’s-eye view of the landscape, revealing patterns and details not seen from the ground.
• Environmental Landscape: Highlights the impact of human activity on the environment, blending documentary and artistic approaches to emphasize issues like climate change, pollution, and conservation.

Key Aspects of Metaphor in Photography:

1. Symbolic Representation: An object, scene, or composition is used to symbolize something else. For example, a decaying building might metaphorically represent aging, loss, or societal decline.
2. Layered Meaning: The image communicates on multiple levels. While it shows something concrete, it also suggests a more abstract concept or emotion.
3. Viewer Interpretation: Metaphorical photography relies on the viewer’s ability to recognize and interpret the symbolic connection, which can vary based on personal or cultural context.

• Composition,
• Lighting
• Color
• Perspective
• Focus
• Symbolism
• …

Collectively, they shape the visual language of photography. Understanding photography codes allows viewers to analyze and interpret images more effectively, recognizing the deliberate choices made by photographers to communicate ideas, evoke emotions, and convey narratives through their work. 

Key Aspects of Postmodernism:

1. Skepticism and Relativity: Postmodernism questions absolute truths and universal values, emphasizing that knowledge and reality are subjective and constructed by cultural and social contexts.
2. Rejection of Grand Narratives: It critiques overarching theories or ideologies (such as Enlightenment rationality or Marxism) that claim to explain all of human history or society. Instead, it celebrates smaller, localized, and diverse narratives.
3. Playfulness and Irony: Postmodernism often uses irony, parody, and pastiche to subvert traditional forms and conventions. It blurs the lines between high and low culture, mixing different styles and genres.
4. Fragmentation and Decentralization: It embraces complexity, ambiguity, and fragmentation, reflecting a world seen as diverse and chaotic. This can manifest in art, literature, and media that reject linear or coherent structures.
5. Intertextuality and Self-Referentiality: Postmodern works frequently reference or allude to other texts, blurring the boundaries between different works and making the act of creation and interpretation part of the narrative.

Key concepts within post-structuralism in photography include:

1. Deconstruction: Post-structuralism advocates for the deconstruction of binary oppositions and hierarchical structures within photographs. It questions the notion of fixed meaning and instead emphasizes the multiplicity of interpretations that can arise from the same image.
2. Intertextuality: Post-structuralism explores the intertextual nature of photographs, considering how images are influenced by and reference other images, texts, and cultural contexts. It highlights the fluidity of meaning and the ways in which photographs engage in dialogue with broader cultural discourses.
3. Multiplicity of Voices: Post-structuralism acknowledges the diversity of perspectives and voices that contribute to the interpretation of photographs. It emphasizes the importance of considering multiple viewpoints and experiences in understanding the complexity of photographic meaning.
4. Power and Representation: Post-structuralism interrogates the power dynamics inherent in photographic representation, considering how images can both reinforce and subvert dominant ideologies and structures of power. It calls attention to the ways in which photography can be used to challenge hegemonic narratives and amplify marginalized voices.
5. Identity and Subjectivity: Post-structuralism considers how identity and subjectivity shape the interpretation of photographs. It recognizes that individual viewers bring their own personal experiences, biases, and cultural backgrounds to their engagement with images, influencing the meanings they attribute to them.

By adopting a post-structuralist perspective, practitioners of photography can explore the complexity and contingency of meaning within images, opening up new possibilities for interpretation and understanding. 

Structuralism refers to a theoretical approach that examines how photographs are structured and organized to convey meaning. Drawing from the fields of structuralism in semiotics and cultural theory, structuralism in photography focuses on analyzing the underlying systems, codes, and conventions that govern the production and interpretation of photographic images.

Key concepts within structuralism in photography include:

1. Signs and Signifiers: Structuralism explores how signs (visual elements within the photograph) and signifiers (the physical form of those signs) are structured and organized to convey meaning. 
2. Binary Oppositions: Structuralism often analyzes photographs in terms of binary oppositions, such as light/dark, presence/absence, or inside/outside. 
3. Narrative Structures: Structuralism examines the narrative structures present within photographs, including how images are sequenced, framed, and presented to convey a particular story or message. 
4. Cultural and Ideological Codes: Structuralism explores the cultural and ideological codes embedded within photographs, including how images reflect and reinforce broader cultural norms, values, and beliefs. 

“Photography is by nature a documentary art.”

…in the same way that a [film] poster creates an expectation for the film, so a genre in photography – portraiture, landscape, still life, documentary etc. – creates an expectation for the meanings to be derived from that type of photograph. Each genre creates an expectation for particular types of understanding. Whether the photograph gratifies that expectation is another matter. ( Photography: The Key Concepts )
​

“For me, the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture.” 

In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

“every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.”

“A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed.”

‘…photography is more alive than ever, and at the same time its more dead than ever… (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-45011397 accessed 10/10/2024)