To develop a visual photographic response to this personal, and socio-political study. I would like to explore layers of truth, something that has interested me increasingly as I have progressed through the documentary course.

Allan Sekula “On Invention of Photographic Meaning” 1975

In this essay Sekula investigates the nature of photographic context and meaning, and is influenced by Roland Barthes and his need to understand the political uses for photography. This is my summary of his points:

• Photographic discourse is an arena of information exchange which has its limits. This is not a neutral process, there are always interests at heart.
• Every message embodies an argument that determines its semantic target.
• Photographs are not complete utterances on their own, but are determined by context.
• Photographic literacy is learned though it may appear natural.
• He disputes the historical understanding that a photograph represents the truth.
• Barthes refers to the denotative and connotive (cultural meaning) function of photographs, but Sekula says the two cannot be separated.
• In defining in historical terms the relationship between photography and high art Sekula examines 2 well known photographs Immigrants going down the gangplank (Hine,1905) and The Steerage (Stieglitz, 1907) but concludes that it is impossible to read them neutrally.
• Barthes says that the photograph standing alone presents only the possibility of meaning, however Sekula says “Any given photograph is conceivably open to appropriation by a range of text” (p457)
• There are “magical” powers to images that can transcend the visible and informative powers of photographs.
• A photographs informative functions are grounded in empiricism, a contextually related object or event.
• The invention of photography as high art is grounded in the rhetoric of romanticism and symbolism.
• Baudelaire and Minor White suggest that a photograph reduced to tones, a gray scale, is a “phonological carrier system for vague prelinguistic scale of affect” (p467), or an equivalent. I researched this for my Landscape assignments 4 and 5 where I found this view of photography as a range of tones to form equivalents inspiring.
• A caption can reinforce a message but will still depend on the photographer to be honest in his capturing of the image as well as the caption.
• There is a symbolist folk-myth and a realist folk-myth, or art photography versus documentary photography. Every photograph in a given context will lean towards one of these poles of meaning: Seer v witness, photography as expression v photography as reportage, imagination v empirical truth, affective value v informative value, and metaphoric signification v metonymic (associative) signification p472
• Don’t confuse liberal/concerned documentary with realism, there will always be underlying expressionism. p472

Reflection:

Reading this has further challenged any thoughts I may have that a photograph is neutral. Whilst we might think of photographs as documents, there will always be a sign or message within the image and that is outside of a caption or supporting text. A photograph will always relate to reality through its discourse. I refer back to my research on part 2 of this Documentary course where I read that Sekula elevates documentary to Art when it “transcends its reference to the world” by becoming self-expressive. Therefore documentary photographs are are charged with cultural social historical and political meaning, context.

Reference:

Sekula, A. (1982) “On the invention of photgraphic meaning” In: Burgin V.(eds.) Thinking Photography. Communications and culture. Palgrave, London.

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