Chapter 3 Interpreting Photographs: What Does it Mean

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Chapter 3 Interpreting Photographs What Does it
Mean?

• From Criticizing Photographs by Terry Barrett 3rd
  ed.

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An Exemplary Interpretation

• Barrett begins with an interpretation of a
  photograph by Jeff Wall, Dead Troops Talk, 1992,
  written by Susan Sontag.
• Here is a copy of the image in colour (the
  original is 7 1/2 feet high and 13 feet wide).

The image, by a Canadian photographer, is a
photograph of a staged re-enactment of a recent
historical war (Afghanistan in 1986). However, it
gruesomely depicts the dead as speaking. What
they are telling us forms the meaning of the
image.
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An Exemplary Interpretation

• Sontags analysis is exemplary because she tells
  us no more than we need to know.
• She states her thesis, gives brief information
  about the photographer, and describes the images
  sources as well as the image itself. She
  concludes by reinforcing her thesis about the
  photo being an antiwar image.

Goya was an artist who depicted The Disasters
of War in a series of drawings. One of wars
worst horrors is its seeming normality (41).
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Introduction

• All photographseven simple onesdemand
  interpretation in order to be fully understood
  and appreciated (42).
• Bizarre photographs attract interpretive
  questions because they are different (42).
• Photographs made in a straightforward,
  stylistically realistic manner are in special
  need of interpretation (42).
• Images are inflected (the meaning is bent or
  curved varied in tone altered by addition) and
  images are partial (biased laden with values)
  (43).

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Introduction continued

• Photographers make choices about what and
  how to photograph (43).
• These choices are very sophisticated (43).
• There is no such thing as an innocent eye
  when referring to the human eye, the camera, or
  the photograph (43).
• Photographs are not simple mirror images (43).
• They are made by skillful artists and
  deserve to be read, explained, analyzed and
  deconstructed (43).

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Defining Interpretation

• Interpretation occurs whenever attention and
  discussion move beyond information to matters of
  meaning (43).
• To interpret is to account for all the described
  aspects of a photograph and to posit meaningful
  relationships between the aspects (43).
• Interpreting is telling about the point, the
  meaning, the sense, the tone, or the mood of the
  photograph (37).

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More about Interpretation

• We need to ask what is most important in an
  image. How does form affect subject?
• How do light and contrast contribute to effect
  and thus to meaning?
• Interpretations are based on what is in the work
  (internal) and external to it (its causal
  environment).

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Interpretation and Metaphors

• All photographs can be understood to be metaphors
  in need of interpretation (44).
• A metaphor is an implied comparison between
  unlike things (44).
• Verbal metaphors as well as images have a literal
  and an implied meaning visual images or
  metaphors (photographs) also have levels of
  meaning what is shown literally and what is
  implied.

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Metaphoric Meanings Panzani

• To miss the metaphoric and see only the
  literal is to misunderstand the expressive
  aspects of photographs (38).
• Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and
  what they mean.

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Roland Barthes and Panzani

• Barthes was a French semiotician who studied
  cultural meanings, especially in photographs
  (44).
• DENOTATION refers to the literal meaning.
• CONNOTATION refers to the implied meaning.
• Images also have a LINGUISTIC meaning if words
  are present that have both a denotative and
  connotative meaning (39).

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Roland Barthes continued

• Connotation in language in the Panzani ad is in
  the sound of the brand name, Panzani (which
  connotes Italianicity (45).
• The literal meaning of a photograph shows its
  subject matterthe objects in the image.
• The connotative meaning of the image comes from
  what these things represent, their meaning even
  the colour is suggestive (45).
• Barthes schema (a plan or outline that applies
  to others of the same group) works for all
  photographs, not just ads (45).

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Objects of Interpretation

• Critics can interpret 1) single photographs, 2)
  a body of work or bodies of work by a single
  photographer, 3) the photography of a country, or
  4) the photography of a time period (45).
• Sometimes such interpretations transcend subject
  matter and form to consider larger implications
  of the work done by an artist or photographer.

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Josef Koudelkas Gypsies

• John Sarkowski, a curator and photo critic,
  writes about how Koudelkas study of Gypsies is
  more about human values than about conveying
  historical or cultural data, ie. anthropology.
  See 45-46.
• You know his pictures are real life--not
  posed, not faked." Contemporary Photographer

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Straight Photography

• Straight photography, as a style, changed from
  the 1960s from documentary photos of unusual
  people to the American landscape as subject
  matter in the 1970s, a change that is considered
  a return to the past by critic Jonathan Green
  (46). This interpretation is based on external
  knowledge about art and photography over the last
  two centuries.
• Interpretive statements about photographs are
  not limited to photographs (47) these
  statements teach us about our cultural
  environment (Dworkin qtd in Barrett 41).

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Interpretive Claims and Arguments

• Interpretive claims are usually stated as truths,
  but are understood to be opinions (47).
• Interpretive claims need evidence or proof,
  usually descriptive proof and analysis.
• Sometimes evaluations or judgments are mixed in
  with interpretive claims.

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Interpretive Claims continued

• All interpretations share a fundamental
  principle photographs have meanings deeper than
  what appears on their surfaces (48).
• The surface meaning is obvious (48).
• Deeper meanings are implied by what is
  pictured and how it is pictured (48).
• Cindy Shermans images question the cultural
  construction of femininity (Heartney qtd in
  Barrett 48).

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Interpretive Perspectives

• Harry Callahan (1912 99) shot various images of
  his wife Eleanor over several decades.
• Barrett profiles three comparative analyses of
  Callahans work (48 51).
• The image on the left is from the Eastman House
  Web gallery.

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Types of Interpretations Preview

• Comparative
• Archetypal
• Feminist
• Psychoanalytic
• Formalist
• Semiotic
• Marxist

• Stylistic
• Biographic
• Intentionalist
• Technical
• Combination

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Types of Interpretation

• Comparative looks at other art forms,
  photographs, or photographers work and
  compares/contrasts them to the image.
• Archetypal (archaios ancient tupos mold,
  model) sees an image in broadly significant
  human and cultural terms as mythic, symbolic,
  universal and impersonal (50).
• For the best analysis of archetypes see Joseph
  Campbells work.

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Types of Interpretation Feminist Criticism

• Interprets an image according to a range of
  feminist ideologies
• 1) liberal mainly white, middle-class,
  benign, focused on job and gender equality
• 2) radical advocates more freedom from male
  domination for marginalized groups

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Feminist Interpretations continued

• Post-structuralist examines the language of
  patriarchy (L. Patri father) or societies
  dominated by male power structures (in the home,
  workplace, and government).
• Ecological values the goddess mythologies and
  examines the role of women in male societies as
  care givers and nurturers, but also as women of
  power who have been suppressed.

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The Mens Movement

• Most often associated with Robert Bly who wrote
  Iron John (1990) about his coming to terms with
  an alcoholic father.
• Wrote The Sibling Society (1996) about lack of
  respect and increasing violence.
• Associated with mens groups who are into poetry,
  running naked in the woods, and drumming to
  reclaim their lost expressiveness and lost
  father-son relationships however, not seen as
  legitimate in many academic and critical circles.
• Male violence as derived from popular cultural is
  explored in Tough Guise, a film made in 1999 with
  Jackson Katz about the aggressive male persona
  and its causes.

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Other Interpretive Strategies

• Psychoanalytic uses theories like Freudian and
  Jungian analysis.
• Formalist emphasizes compositional elements
  without going further.
• Semiotic looks at how an image means through
  linguistic and pictorial signs and symbols.

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Semiotic Interpretation

• Bill Nichols has done an analysis of a Sports
  Illustrated Cover that depicted a large photo of
  a football player (brawn) looking at his coach
  on the sidelines with a small insert of Dan
  Devine (the brains)not a flattering semiotic
  analysis (52) of football players!

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Marxist Interpretations

• Ask ideological questions about class and social
  systems and whether or not an image promotes or
  critiques assumptions about class positioning
  eg. whether the middle class and corporate power
  dominates the working class (with consent called
  hegemony).
• Marxism asks what role certain photos play in
  maintaining class structures.

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Stylistic and Biographical

• A Stylistic analysis compares the style of one
  artists work to the style of other artists
  works and suggests implicitly that all art
  comes from other art (52).
• A Biographical analysis uses biographical
  materials to assist interpretation, assuming
  there is a cause-effect relationship (53).

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Intentional Interpretation

• Seeks the artists own intended meaning by
  reading her/his own interpretation
• Not the only meaning to be considered!
• Not the only standard by which all other meanings
  ought to be measured!
• Can become the intentional fallacyinterpreting
  a work based only on artist intention.

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Technical Interpretations

• Technical analyses consider how images are made
  the photographic process, choice of subject,
  medium, printing methods (these are descriptive).
• Adds how the making affects the meaning of the
  image (form is content).

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Combination

• Uses several approaches as listed before.
• May also incorporate conflicting analyses.
• Calls into question whether one analysis is
  right or better than others.
• Combination approaches apply the type of method
  best suited to a particular image.

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Right Interpretations

• Some people understand artworks better than
  others do and therefore, some interpretations
  are better than others (Beardsley about
  literature 54).
• Interpretations are not true or false but rather
  plausible or implausible reasonable or
  unreasonable (Margolis 55).
• There is no one true interpretation.
• Good interpretations are convincing and weak
  ones are not (55).

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Right Interpretations continued

• Good plausible, enlightening, insightful,
  revealing, meaningful, original, well supported.
• Poor unreasonable, unlikely, inappropriate,
  absurd, far-fetched, strained, unsubstantiated.
  (Barrett 55)

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Two False Assumptions About Art Criticism

• 1. Thats just your opinion the idea that
  everyones opinion holds the same weight, so
  interpretation doesnt matter.
• 2. It doesnt matter what you say about art
  since its all subjective anyway the idea that
  art interpretation is futile and meaningless.

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Two Criteria to Assess Interpretations

• 1. Correspondence making sure all claims are
  grounded in observations of the image all facts
  or items about the image must be accounted for
  (55).
• 2. Coherence making sure that all claims are
  logically consistent and backed by evidence an
  interpretation should make sense in and of itself
  (56).

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Interpretations and Artist Intent

• A simple way to approach intentionalism would be
  to find out what the photographer intended and
  decide whether he or she was successful.
• The interpretive task is for the viewer, not the
  photographer.
• Many photographers work intuitively.
• A photographers interpretation is only one of
  many possible interpretations.

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Interpretations and Feelings

• Interpretations must include feelings.
• Analyse how images make you feel and then relate
  those feelings back to the image.
• Feelings help us to identify the connotations of
  images.
• After critical analysis, our feelings may change
  profoundly about an image (58).

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Meaning and Significance

• Significance refers to what the photograph means
  to us and may fall into the realm of conjecture,
  therapy, reminiscence or nostalgia which are all
  subjective factors (personal, private).
• Meaning refers to what the image is about in
  itself or what can be observed and said to any
  informed viewer and is therefore more objective.

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Community of Interpreters

• Viable interpretations are held by a group of
  people who include critics, artists, historians,
  dealers, collectors, and viewers (59).
• Interpretation is a collective endeavour (59).
• All discuss the image because they see the same
  details and can help each other understand
  meaning (59).
• A corrective community that will not tolerate
  inflexible interpretations (59).
• Interpretations may shift over time, sometimes
  dramatically (59).

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Valued for her beauty an educational image
(according to the photographer) now in the
Smithsonian
39
Rudolph Eickenmeyer Jr.s Tired Butterfly
(Evelyn Nesbit)

• An example of an image (1901-02) whose
  interpretation can change over time.
• At age 16, Evelyn Nesbit became a photo model and
  a showgirl. Her image was linked to a sex
  scandal and murderher husband shot her former
  lover.