Anne collier

Loyola University Chicago

Art and Visual Cultural - FNAR 199

Name: Karolina Costa

Response Paper – “ The Photographic message”

      In the article, Barthes suggests that the image consisting of to make an analogy with the photographed scene, which is literally the real. However, we can see there is a mistake in this statement because it ends with the particularity and ideology of the photographer. Then, Barthes says that photography is a message without code, which means it has a style. Also, the article portrays some concepts related to the photographic language, such as: transmission process of the image, message types and relationship between text and image.

   According to the author, the press photography has the purpose of transmitting a message. This message needs to be collected by a source of emission, transmitted by a channel of transmission and displayed by a point of reception. The source of emission is composed by stuff of the newspaper, this includes: the photographer, the photo selector team, the photo editor etc. The point of reception is compound by readers, which will absorb the contents of the message. The transmission channel is the newspaper or any media transmitting that put the image as center of information, accompanied by texts, legends and additional information.

   Another important photographic aspect is the difference between Connotation and Denotation. Connotation is the imposition of meaning to photographic message, an attempt to analogous coding (analogon) and can be prepared in different image production levels. There are six issues that can interfere with the reading connote an image, they are: Trick effects, pose, Objects, Photogenia, Aestheticism and Syntax. Many of these styles constantly appear in front of us without notice. Objects, for example. We can see that  president’s pictures are usually accompanied by the national flag. Another example that always appears in magazines and blogs is the Syntax, when they exposes the celebrities’ lives through embarrassing pictures or unusual situations.  

   Unlike connoted image, the detonated image do not has a symbolic character. It is closest to reality and imparts the pure and real meaning of the photo. Because of that, it does not induce the public to have a particular interpretation or reaction.

    The reading process in the photographic can be decomposed into three stages: perception, identification and interpretation. This differential makes the emotional reactions of the reading process more intense and spontaneous  than reading a text. When reading a text, the psychological reactions also trigger immediately through the meaning of words and phrases is primarily mediated by the imagination, to then be translated into mental images. In reading the photographic image there is a large and direct triggering emotional reactions, as this already deleted this intermediate stage that mentally conceives the image.

    A photograph is always a picture of something. This is linked to the referent to certify their existence and the whole historical process that generated it. Read a photograph implies rebuild in time it subject, derive it in the past and combine it to a virtual future.