Week 2 – How Do We Read a Photograph? by Graham Clarke

 

• Although the act of looking is passive, the viewer enters into a more active dynamic when they begin examining the ‘codes, values and beliefs’ (Clarke, 1997, pg. 28) of a photograph. The viewer reads signals given by the photograph to determine meanings.
• Clarke acknowledges that a photograph is the ‘product of a photographer’ (Clarke, 1997, pg. 28) and is thus encoded with certain ideologies that the viewer may uncover upon further inspection of such codes. The perspective of the photographer is not neutral and the perspective the photographer chooses to signify has effects on the way in which the photo is read.
• When reading a photograph, the viewer uses the idea of denotations and connotations to gain meaning. Denotation refers to what is literally in the photo, for example, a tree; Connotation refers to the associated ideas that accompany the denotation, for example, the tree of life or strength. Photographers can use simple photographic subjects to create significant and profound meanings, due to the nature of encoding connotations within a photograph. (Clarke, 1997, pg. 31)

References

Clarke, G. (1997). The Photograph. New York: Oxford University Press.