Looking at Photographs

This article is talking about the language of photography and how photography is somewhat forced upon people and a day cant go by where you don't see a photograph. Whether it is on a billboard or in a magazine or newspaper you are going to see at least one image somewhere. Right off the bat i found this idea interesting because, although it is so elementary, i never realized how common it is to see photographs in day to day life. It makes so much more sense why people think photography is so easy. They see it everywhere and see that it is so common as opposed to paintings which you deliberately go and see somewhere, the easy viewing and amount of views they get make photography seem like it is so simple when really there is a lot more too it.

Sorry little tangent there. So the author is talking about the language of photography and how we think about photography. He mentions codes and references Roland Barthes which leads me to believe he is talking about the same codes that Barthes is, rhetoric codes and iconic codes etc. He talks about how a persons outside influences or general knowledge influence how they read what an image is trying to say. For instance he discusses how we may look at an image and say "What is that" and then think about what it might be and figure it out. THe image begins as a mixture of light and dark tones, lines, and focus and becomes an object that we all readily recognize.

This article really influenced me to look deeper into images and think of every possible meaning that it could have as opposed to just going with what i first thought of when I looked at it and walking away. It is very easy to take images for granted these days, acknowledge what is in the image but don't even think about why it is in the image and the more complex thoughts that could be communicated.

Keeping the Photograph at Arm's Length

This article is talking about how the author thinks that art photography and life have nothing in common and do not come hand in hand. This i have to disagree with I belieive art, wether you know it or not, is always in some way realted to you and you're life. He mentions how a photographer my take a picture of "corners of nondescrpit rooms" and then poses the question of if this is related to life. The way this relates to life isn't very obvious, it may not be something that screams and jumps out at you. Maybe this photographer wanted to take pictures of corners because he felt like he was backed into a corner (metaphorically=y of course) in his life, that he had nowhere else to go; who knows. I just strongly feel that an artist cannot create art without it relating to them and their life in some way because the ideas of it came from within the self. artists don't go and pick a project idea from a formulated list of someone else's, all the ides come from thier own mind therefore their mind and life are always related to their work.

Well as I read on i realized that his opinion on this matter wasn't as I thought. I don't think he believes that life isn't related to art because he talks about how our interests will always influence our photographs, why would we take pictures of things we don't care about? that just doesn't make sense. He is more commenting on how the better photographers that are out there have kept their topics a little less close to home than say a project about you're troubled family life. Like Lewis Hine and child labor; obviously he cares about the subject and that is how it relates to his life but he isn't directly affected by it. I'm still not sure I fully agree or will take in this article because he is saying art-photography is dead which i just cannot agree with but I did think this article was very interesting and thought provoking.

Words in Reverse

This is the weirdest article ever. I have no idea what the point of it is. Its all a bunch of little mini stores that are either telling of an event or simple activity then others are stories of Indians. Very random i thought so I typed the title into Google and read that these little mini-stories are excerpts from other books of hers; one about an Indian reservation and another titled "Like a Stream" but i am still not sure what the point of this is. Maybe to get people thinking in different ways when she just throws random stories out their leaving the reader to decide what it is an its significance. I did a little more research and found a lot of information on this musician which i would assume is the same Laurie Anderson since I could not find anything else and this confused me even more. I really think this article is just trying to make the reader think abstractly. I can't see it having any other relevance besides the recollecting of events in an interesting way since the stories have no relevance to each other. I don't know, i guess i will find out tomorrow.

layout

Week 2 Images

Proposal Images

Project Proposal

Rhode is the smallest state in the United States and also the place I was born and raised. Despite its small size, I do not have much knowledge about it. To discover more about my home state, I am going be putting together a non-fiction book with photographs and facts regarding the state and it’s history.
The book will begin with the origin of the state; how it was found, who and when it was founded and the inhabitants it had at that time. The photographs that will coincide with this part of the book will be of Prospect Park, which is dedicated to Roger Williams, the founder of the state, Narragansett Bay (where it was found) photographs of Narragansett where a main Indian tribe settled. The book will then move on to discuss Rhode Island’s role in the revolution and industrialization. I will photograph Slater Mill, which is where the industrial revolution began in Rhode Island. I will also photograph what is left of the cotton textile mills. I will then talk about the construction of the State House and some history of the city that surrounds it. The book would then proceed into the wars/battles in Rhode Island and the Great Depression’s impact on this particular state. For images in this section I will got to all the major forts and photograph how they look now. The end of the book will be unfinished since the growing of history of the state cannot be captured now but will leave a hopeful ending for the future.
This book will be a contrast of new and old. My pictures will obviously be current and the history will be as said in text since I can’t capture that. I see these images in black and white to give reference to history and to leave the image to speak for itself as opposed to distracting the viewer with color. I am interested in this project because I aspire to be a photojournalist and hopefully doing this project will help me get closer to that goal. What I mean by that is getting familiar with putting photos and text together and having each stand on their own.

Critique of the Image

This reading talks about critiquing images according to iconic signs; 'a sign possessing some properties of the object represented.'(Umberto Eco) The author discusses how we can look at an object and remember certain aspects of that object although not all of them. We then see aspects of that object and can infer what it would be without seeing the whole of the object. These codes that we remember are called codes of recognition, memorable portions of an object that can be reflected upon. Eco then goes on to name a list of other types of codes such as perceptive codes, codes of transmission, tonal codes, iconic codes, iconographic codes, codes of taste sensibility, rhetorical codes, stylistic codes, and codes of the unconscious. An iconic code is an object that all people can refer to and notice right away. Such as a man, woman, or lion. An iconographic code would be a more specific icon/symbol which would reference a man or a woman more specifically or relating to a certain mythology. Codes of taste and sensibility call for even more knowledge of a subject. For example, as Eco uses, a flag could represent patriotism or war according to the other codes of the image. All of these codes are relevant to how we look at photographs and why we infer from them what we do in them. Without having a description from the artist, or even with a description, we automatically look at an image and think of certain things right off the top of our head. Like when Thomas had us visualize an image of a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup and tell us what we would read from it. People obviously think right to beverage, caffeine, Styrofoam because those are the most immediate, and possibly obvious, things to us. These codes would be iconic codes. When maybe it has a deeper meaning; a sign of addiction or a comment on corporate chains.

A Photograph

This reading seemed more concerned about a legendary photograph than the deep meanings and thoughts within the image. Or maybe he is talking about how other media influences, such as movies or television shows, affect our way of relating to images. Eco talks about this photograph of a profile of a man in a ski mask holding two pistols. He mentions that most revolutionary photographs of a man standing represent a victim, not a hero. He then says "this individual hero... had the pose, the terrifying isolation of the tough guy of gangster movies or the solitary gunman of the West." Although this image was taken during a very important time in history, Eco illustrates that this image does not define the revolution and is not the description of a singular event, it is the concepts of the photographs and the conversations that emerge from it that is important. Eco goes on to say that with this particular photograph, no one is concerned with how it actually was taken of how it was framed but more concerned with the fact that it sparked this discussion where political and private meet.

Rhetoric of the Image

In this reading, Barthes is analyzing an image, pulling out every meaning it could possibly have. He uses an advertisement upon which to discuss that contains a mesh bag full of red, green, and yellow peppers along side a box of spaghetti that reads 'Panzani. I think he chose this image because advertisements have a certain message in mind, something that they are definitely trying to get across to the reader. He first introduces the "three messages," the linguistic, coded, and non-coded messages. The linguistic message contains words, 'Panzani' which in itself has two meanings; one the obvious the company the spaghetti came from and two the assumption of Italy. The colors of the vegetables in the image also help denote this linguistic meaning. In this section of the text he also talks about how the arrangement of the vegetables infers that the product being advertised gives you every aspect of a meal, causing me to re-think how I position things in my still life. Forgetting that if you put an object next to another object, people are automatically going to make a connection whether you want them to or not. Barthes then moves on to talk about the coded message of the image. The coded message is that of which the objects in the image connotate, such as the fruit being fresh, plentiful, referencing Italy, all things that are easily read by looking at the image. Things that any person with knowledge of food and its culture would pick up on. The last message, the non-coded message is the more abstract way of reading the message. Thinking about what it is as a whole as opposed to looking at specific things in the image and drawing what you know from them. It is about the whole image and why they placed things together in the way that they did.
This article was hard to grasp for me, but once having read it two or three times I finally picked up on what he was trying to say. This article really made me think more deeply about what my pictures are saying. Now i feel that i can more easily make every aspect of the picture intentional as opposed to saying "oh, i didn't even see that in the image." Every thing in the image is going to be noticed and someone will comment on it and wonder why the artist chose to put that object in a certain place, or why use the colors that they did, or why the composition is as it is.