Reviewing Images

When describing and breaking down an likeness, focus on semiotics. Constructed imagery that help to decider an image’s meaning. Martin Parr England from Ooh La La (1998). . Initially, we were asked to train down this image ourselves. Traditional blue willow pattern china tea cup with saucer. Traditional British red, white and blue colours. Cafe pattern gingham table cloth, cheap. Tea looks cold – lonely. Empty table, blueish cast in background sort of makes it seem cold and reflects paradigm British weather, rain, dark, gloom. Red and white is very English (tablecloth). Posh cup and saucer on cheap, tacky tablecloth. When reading an image, look at the year in which it was produced, see what was circumstance at the time to read into whether the image reflects something more socially important. Polysemic means having more than one potential meaning. We also read part of Stephen Bull’s hard-cover The Meaning of Photographs which I actually really enjoyed reading. He discusses Parr’s image England. He comments on how things that are considered to be British are on numerous occasions things that have been adapted from other countries. Such an example is tea. Our version of tea that is British is tea with milk, a customary British way of drinking it. Yet tea itself comes from China/Africa etc. Bull also notes how the willow arrangement on the tea cup connotes ‘Eastern-ness’ yet when I read the image, I saw something very British in the pattern, something that reminded me of the crockery from my childhood. Barthes’ scrap that all images are polysemous argues that every image has very clear denotations that is unchanging. However, the understanding that comes from these denotations, the connotations, can be different from yourself to person, much like the way that the puncture of an image differs between people. At this point it’s important to note how Bull discusses the way that meanings are fixed using. He discusses the way that anchorage and relay pillar images. To describe this, initially he writes about the denotations of a Parr image titled Conservative ‘Midsummer Madness’ Party by simply describing the people in the allusion, the placement of them within the frame and what is clearly happening within the... Bull then moves on to comment on how some of these denotations can elicit meaning. He discusses how their facial expressions connote monotony or conflict. However, he also moves on to talk about how the title of the image conflicts with the image itself and acts as a relay mechanism. He references Liz Kotz who discussed the importance of the relationship between words and figurativeness. Barthes writes similarly about the way text works as an anchor to basically tell you what lies within the image. Text like this is often found alongside meet photography and advertising as ‘it confirms the who, what, why, where and when’ (Bull, P. 40). Text used in this way often directs a viewer’s attention to the point of the image. Relay is where the photography and workbook work in tandem, they bounce off each other and support each other helping to create a meaning that couldn’t be made by them standing alone. A great example of this that Bull gives is Conservative ‘Midsummer Dementia’ Party by Parr. Conservative, midsummer and party all describe the photograph and give it context, yet the word ‘Madness’ jars with the image and creates questions, creates a contradiction, thus the content goes back and forth. It also links well into a project we are carrying out in 505 at the moment that requires us to create a publication like a book or a video etc. Bull discusses how a words is created using a selection of images that compliment and contradict one another to create a meaning that runs from cover to cover, creating something thematic.