Recommended books:
Practices of looking – Lisa Cartwright/Martina Sturton
Visual Communication, from theory to practice.
Several key theories:
Communication theory & Semiotics
Psychology
News Values
Representation
Media manipulation
Context
Influence
Film
Theme lectures 20 - 30 mins
Death
Love
Beauty
Sex
Evil
God
Why do we have art & stuff?
Aesthetically pleasing
Communication
Influence/effect (Advertising)
Identity ---à manufactured
Escapism (pleasure)
Communicate – Influence -à Perpetuate – Status Quo -à Challenge norms
Expression – Catharsis
The key concepts of photography
Semiotics
Language is a series of signs.
Cat – Shapes assigned a sound. Ka Ah Tuh. Its just a word its not the actual animal. Saying cat is not a cat. A drawing of a cat is a drawing, a symbol that stands for something else.
Semiotics is the study of signs.
Although Plato and Aristotle looked at signs. We generally consider Charles Sansers Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure as the fathers of modern semiotics.
What is a sign? “Something that stands for something to someone in some capacity.
A sign is made up of two parts:
Signifier – the word “cat”
Signified – denotative - explicit
- connotative - implicit
Meaning Is not fixed it is fluid.
Roland Barthes
Image, music, text
Photographs are still signs. Its still a photograph.
Representation
1. Theoretical concept.
2. Socio-political issue.
Important to see how the world is re-presented to us.
Mimesis. A mirror on life.
Social construction. The idea we as people construct meaning. We add meaning to objects.
Meaning isn’t in objects, we add meaning. There’s no mirror or reflection on the world.
Are we free?
No – Legal system
- freedom of speech = social norms – peer pressure
- drug control
- consumerist/capitalist - participants
- ideology/social values – personal/social
- Media plays the biggest role.
Hegemony – Small group of people excreting influence over a larger group of people. Not through force.
Illusion of choice.
Hypodermic model – Directly injected into the brain
Inoculation model – A series of continuous injections to the brain. / Desensitized
“We live in a society that values/promotes individuality, yet demands conformity”
Nobuyoshi Araki
Relationship with wife 1970. Then all his sexual partners afterwards.
Americansuburbx.com
The gaze
A male gaze, the way women are looked at by men and appraised by men. And now women look at themselves and judge other women in the same way.
Nan Goldin
Guy Bourdan
Laura Mulvey
Ella von unworth
Death – Tom Evans
When confronted with death most people have a difficulty dealing with what is in front of them. The sudden release of adrenaline coupled with survival instinct means that fight or flight takes over, so taking a photograph is not something that comes naturally to most people. In fact the thought of taking a picture of some ones death to some people is repulsive. However most people have a morbid fascination with looking at images of death and will be drawn to viewing these images. Take for instance the death of Osama Bin Laden, the pictures of him dead exist and while some people claim they need proof of his death. They also are perhaps seeking closure for the terrible atrocities committed. There is also a interest in seeing one of the most notorious people who ever lived lifeless. The same way that if there was a Hitler suicide picture it would most likely be the most viewed photograph ever taken, because it is this famously notorious person dead. Fallen from whatever position of power they had achieved. Calling these people notorious hardly does them justice but it’s the same with good people too. While we are drawn to any images of death with a morbid curiosity, but we are more so drawn to images of death that involve well known people. The JFK assassination was caught on TV and in still image form for the world to see. Those images will still be played for the next 100 years, because it shows the death of the most powerful person on the planet. Perhaps this means we are now becoming desensitized to violence and that soon there will be no boundary’s as to what can be shown.
The earliest example of this is Robert Capa’s falling soldier
From this point on with the use of photography to report wars images of death would be captured. Although a lot would not see the light of day for a long time due to propaganda being used. This would mean that any negative images that showed the allies in defeat would never be shown in order to keep the moral of the county up. However images of Germanys defeat would be shown. The desensitization process has been going on for many years and it could be considered a bit of a urban myth that its only recently its happened. You could trace examples all the way back to the renascence period and early paintings showing the death of Christ. This again is a famous figure who suffered perhaps the most famous death ever.
You could even argue that from before that time people have had a fascination with death, people would turn up to executions. They would even take part in stoneings if given the chance. The myth that its just in recent time we are becoming desensitized is a false one. Although the media is far easier to find in this modern day and age. People are no less fascinated by death now than they were 100 years ago or even 1000. Death is mysterious and no one knows what happens when you die so the interest will always be there. However more and more graphic content is becoming available and it is available to those of a very young age and this is a worry to some because they believe that a young child finds it difficult to come to terms with death. They would argue that a child would need to be taught the proper consequences of death before they are allowed to view the graphic content.
Sex in advertising
Sex sells
As a species, on the most basic fundamental level reproduction is perhaps our sole propose for existence. The survival of our species is defendant on our desire to reproduce, a survival instinct shared by every other living being on the planet. Though it may be conscious or subconscious it is what drives us to do anything with our lives. So playing on this need or desire is a easy way of ensuring audience attention during advertising. By glamourizing the sex side of a product it is far easier to sell it. However this is not true for all items with the exceptions being any products aimed at small children, however even those can sometimes be sexualized with the advert being not intended for the child but the child’s parent.
The biggest products that use sex to sell are products aimed at a sexual mature or maturing audience. With any glamorization of alcohol and cigarettes banned products such as perfumes and aftershaves, cars or food products have become the biggest offenders when it comes to selling the sexual side of products. However perfumes and aftershaves are by far the worst for using this method. You would be hard pressed to find a none sexualized perfume or aftershave advert.
This advert for Chanel shows how the adverts can be aimed at more than the target sex for the advert. Women will want to believe that they will look like this. That this perfume will make them this level of attractiveness, it will allow them to look and be as seductive as Keria Knightly is. By using a well recognized famous face they instantly grab the attention of everyone watching or walking by. Then by sexualizing the image people instantly want to read more into the product because of this desire to be attractive and appealing so that they can attract a mate. In almost the same way as many animals will perform displays with their feathers, women will want to believe that this will help them seduce a man. Men will also be interested in this advert given the revealing nature of the women in the advert. Again by making use of a famous person they can play on the desire of men to be with women like this. However it is important to maintain a suspension of disbelief. If less subtle methods were used perhaps by spelling it out very simply “Your girlfriend will look like this if you buy our product” the suspension of disbelief is broken because the practical side of the brain is allowed to rationalize what is in front of them. It is important that the advert almost appeal on a subconscious level to both sexes to allow the belief to be held in the advert. This is where the subtle use of photographic techniques comes in. The eyes directly into the camera allows a eye contact to be made, making the advert feel more personal. The position of the hand towards a slightly open mouth gives the feeling of intimacy towards the viewer. The revealing nature of what she is wearing instantly sexualizes the situation and the positioning of the strap to cover the nipple and then her hand just below her hip. This forces the viewer towards the name and picture of the product down the bottom of the image. The subtle positioning of the hair and necklace draw your eyes right into the exposed areas of her chest. While simply having the bare minimum amount of legal clothing allowed in adverts is a far less subtle technique than those used in the rest of the advert it is more used for the dramatic effect. It’s used to get people talking about it, talking about if they had seen Keria Knightly nearly topless in that Chanel advert. This instantly gets people talking about it and will appeal to a much larger audience and to people who had not even seen the advert now know about Chanel perfume. It may even make them hunt down the advert and even buy the product on a whim because of this.
However some adverts now arte starting to play on the sexualizing of adverts. With the latest old spice adverts attempting to improve the products image by using satire to come across as a modern and young brand by breaking from the norm. The advert is successful because it plays on the overuse of sex to sell. It turns all the regularly used methods and throws them at you in a none serious way. The sexualizing of products is openly mocked and everyone is able to relate to the humor because they have been heavily exposed to this sort of thing on a daily basis. By openly mocking its competitors and itself it as given the product a new image and in effect re-launched a brand that was perhaps considered a bit stale and old. The most successful type of advertising is the type that has people talking, the free form of advertising as a result of the advert. While sex is perhaps the easiest form of this we are rapidly becoming desensitized to the use of sex to sell products. With the internet being host to a wide verity of content and this being available to everyone. The desensitization has been quick. With even young children growing up with more extreme forms of sex being used to sell. This means that in order to sell products in the future different forms of advertising such a humor may have to be used to get people talking about particular products again. However sex will always sell and will always be used to great effect with certain products. Even the old spice mocking adverts of a similar type is sexualized. There will never be a way of avoiding it as it is hardwired in our subconscious to respond to this desire.
Formal visual analysis
Gestault theory - Look at the whole thing, explains the whole thing.
Composition – Static image. Dynamic image. Fluid image.
Landscape. Portrait. Square formats.
Headspace & looking room. Landscape
Golden rectangle 1:1:618 Perfect rectangle.
Secondary composition
Symmetrical/asymmetrical
Images read in a z shape.
From left to right = Going. Right to left = returning.
Medium is the message.
Scale
Technique (style)
Colour – Saturation – Hue
Space (the use of space) relationship to other elements
“less is more”
Tone – Dark = sad. Light = happy
