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.