The Photographic Message

The photographic message is an issue that has been debated since the creation of photography. Each image holds a meaning and insight into what the photographer has thought when taking the image and what they have wanted to put across through the photography. Roland Barthes created a theory that applies a system in which we can denote and connote images. Denoted means how the photograph is portrayed and literally comes across. Connoting is the references and symbolic meanings that is in the message of the photograph. Depending on what the image is for, depends on the message behind it. Such as if the photograph is for advertising the message would be to benefit what is being advertised whether it is for a holiday or something for the audience to purchase. The message also depends on our knowledge as an individual and will see different messages to other people because photography has so many different meaning's, we translate them in our own unique way. Text also has an important role in the photographic message because when we see images in a newspaper or next to a story, it instantly changes our opinion depending on what it says. If we just look at a photograph we then will decide what we think it means, but if we then read something about what is happening or what the image is about it then will change what we think. This is important because it is then the text that illustrates the photograph rather than the image being the the only crucial element. Barthes goes on to explain how it is also important how close the text is to the image because it is the structure that also determines the connotations in the image. Below I have included examples of the photographic message. It is a self portrait by Nan Goldin, and straight away is clear that it is a woman who has been beat up, the denotation. The connotation then is that the woman may have been in an abusive relationship or she has been in an accident.
The realism in photographs is also a debate in the photographic message. This includes that idea that realism is the signifier in the actually photograph and that we only see the subject matter for what is is. Semiotics is also included in this, in how it signifies between what we seen straight away and what the concept of it is, interpreting the image as a collection of signs that are there to be read .The photographic message theory by Roland Barthes proves to be useful when analysing photographs and shows us that a photograph is more than what it just appears.