Reading Photographs: an introduction to the theory and meaning of images
Salkeld, R. (2018) Reading Photographs. London: Bloomsbury
Quotes
text
Contents
What is a photograph?
Invention: the marriage of chemistry and optics
Time and light
Uses and applications 26 and images 48 Facts and fiction
The camera: an evolution
Case study: Chuck Close
Reading the signs
Where do meanings come from?
Language:words, sounds and images
Semiotics: the study of signs
Ideology: ideas, practices and beliefs
Case study: Anthony Barrett
Truth and lies
What is ‘real’?
Representation and reality
Facts and fiction
Case study: Thomas Hoepker
Identity
People and portraits
Signifying identity
Looking
The body
Case study: Mark Garanger
Big Brother is watching you
The modern world
The bad, the mad and the ‘other’
Surveillance society: the Panopticon
Who is looking at whom?
Public spaces – private lives
Case study: Shizuka Yokomizo
Aesthetics
But is it art?
Photography cannot be art
What is art?
Photography as art – the history of an idea
Into postmodernism
Case study: Richard Billingham
Index A-C
A
Adams, Ansel 160, 161
Adams, Eddie 72-4
advertising 26, 80, 113-14, 115
aesthetics 144-73, 175
Alicante (Cartier-Bresson) 29
arbitrary signs 52, 66-7
Arb us, Diane 105
Arnolfini Portrait (van Eyck) 13
art 28, 144-73, 175; definitions 152-5; photography as 156-69
‘authentic’ photography 34, 81
Ayre, Elizabeth 112, 113
B
Ballantyne, Trudie 46, 4 7, 48, 64, 65, 171
Barrett, Anthony 66-7
Barthes, Roland 50, 56, 61-2
Baudrillard, Jean 87
Bayard, Hippolyte 81
beliefs 58-65
Benetton campaigns 64, 65
Benjamin, Walter 24, 28, 164
Bentham, Jeremy 132, 133
Berger, John 108, 110
Bertillon, Alphonse 124, 125, 127
Bieber, Jodi 114
‘Big Brother’ 1 22-43
Billingham, Richard 172-3
Bland, Alex 87
the body: identity and 110-17; measuring 128, 129
Boulevard du Temple, Paris (Daguerre) 17, 22
Boulogne, Duchenne de 130, 131
Bourne, Samuel 34, 35
C
calotypes 1 8, 19
camera obscura 12, 13, 16
cameraless photography 14
cameras: evolution of 38-9; Kodak 32; ‘ … never lie’ 72-3; operation of 20
canons of art 163
Capa, Robert 86
cartes-de-visite 30, 30-1
Cartier-Bresson, Henri 29, 88
Casey, Joanna 37, 49, 76, 77, 107, 109, 111
celluloid film 38
chemistry and optics 12-1 9
choice 48
chronophotographs 22
cinema 23
Close, Chuck 40-3, 175
codes 55; see also signs
collodion 18, 38
colour 20, 21, 162
‘common sense’ 45, 61
conceptual art 166, 169
‘concerned’ photographers 36-7
connotation 53, 66-7
construction: identity 99; images 80, 81
contact printing 18
content 79
context 55, 73
control 124
Courbet, Gustave 76, 146
Crewdson, Gregory 82 -3
criminal studies 124, 125, 130
cyanotype process 14
D-L
D
Daguerre, Louis-Jacques Mande 16, 17, 22, 81
daguerreotypes 16-18, 17, 30, 31, 40-2, 41, 81
Darwin, Charles 128
Davidson, Bruce 136, 137
de Boulogne, Duchenne 130, 131
de Meyer, Baron Adolph 116, 117
Debord, Guy 87
decisions 48
‘decoding’ 50
defamiliarization 64, 65
Demachy, Robert 1 58, 159
democracy 28, 29
denotation 53, 66-7
diCorcia, Philip-Lorca 136
digital photography 6, 8, 33,39,42, 85
Dijkstra, Rineke 105
directorial mode 82-3
documentary photography 71,105,160
domestic photography 32-3
Dove campaigns 11 3-14, 115
dry plate photography 30, 38
Duchamp, Marcel 4 7, 152, 155
Dworzak, T. 103
E
encoding ideology 61
environmental portraits 100, 105
Erwitt, Elliott 51
essentialist notions 99
ethics 7 4, 136, 142-3
Evans, Walker 123, 146
exoticism 34
expression in art 1 50
Eyck, Jan van 13
F
facts 80-9
family occasions 32-3, 58, 59
fantasy and fashion 11 7
fashion photography 116, 117
fiction 80-9
film cameras 38, 39
fine art 28, 166; see also art
fixing meaning 62
flash photography 78
form 79
Foucault, Michel 124, 132, 134
Fox Talbot, William Henry 14, 18, 19, 1 58
Frank, Robert 79
Frederick, Matt 78, 79
G
Gallon, Francis 128, 130
Garanger, Marc 118-21
gazes 106-9; see also looking
gelatin plate photography 30, 38
gender: gazes 108, 109; identities 108-9, 118-21
genre 55
Gilden, Bruce 88, 89
Glass, Zoltan 26, 27
Goldberg, Jim 56, 57
Google Street View project 140, 141
grammar 48
Guevara, Che 96
H
heliographs 16
Hoepker, Thomas 90-3
hyperreality 8 7
I
iconic signs 52, 66-7
the ideal body 112, 113
ideas 58-65
identity 94-121, 127, 134,175
ideology 58-65, 70, 121
illusion 69, 77
images: construction of 80, 81; language and 48-9; manipulation of 80, 84, 85; ‘ … speaking for themselves· 120; see also pictures
indexical signs 52, 66-7
individualism 134
intending meaning 62
interpretation and truth 73
invention in photography 12-1 9
J
–
K
Kessels, Erik 7
Kodak cameras 32
Korda, Alberto 96
L
language 46, 48-9
Lavery, Lisa 15
Levine, Sherrie 152, 1 75
lies 68-93; see also truth
light: inventions with 12, 14; time and 20-5
Loan, General Nguyen Ngoc 72-4
looking 106-9, 122-43, 150
M-R
M
McCullin, Don 86
Mccurry, Steve 104
madness 130, 131
magic and myth 6
‘making strange’ 64, 65
Man Ray 14
manipulation: images 80, 84, 85; scenes 86
Marey, Etienne-Jules 22-3
The Matrix (film) 70, 71
Mayall, John Jabez Edwin 31
meaning 8, 44-67; fixing 62; intending 62; making 47; origins of 46-7
measuring the body 128, 129
memory 24
Meyer, Baron Adolph de 116, 117
Michelangelo 29
mobile phones 38, 39
modem history 124-9, 156-69
modernism 160, 164, 169, 175
MoMA see Museum of Modern Art
Morath, Inge 162
movement 22-3, 128, 129
mug shots 126, 127
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York 162, 163, 169
Muybridge, Eadweard 22-3, 23, 128, 129
myth and magic 6
N
‘native’ traditions 34
negatives 18
Neususs, Floris 14
New York 78, 90-3
Newhall, Beaumont 1 56, 1 63
news photography 26; see also photojournalism
Niepce, Joseph Nicephore 16, 17
‘normal’ view 58
O
objectivity 71, 105
obvious meanings 61
‘optical unconscious’ 24
optics and chemistry 12-1 9
Orwell, George 132
the other 130, 131, 134
Owens, Bill 58, 59
P
painting 146-7, 175
Panopticon (Bentham) 132, 133
Parr, Martin 35, 68
people and portraits 96-9
perceptual apparatus 70
photograms 12, 14, 15
photography: as art 1 56-69; definitions 11-43; not as art 148-51; uses and applications 26-37
photojournalism 26, 36-7, 71, 160
phrenology 128, 130
physiognomy 128, 130, 131
pictorialism 158, 159
pictures: reading 97; in texts 56, 57; see also images
points of view 58, 71, 150
Popova, Irina 138, 139
popular photography 30-3
portraits 13, 30, 96-1 05
positives 18, 19
postmodernism 164, 169-70, 1 71
practices, ideology 58-65
privacy 136-41
public spaces 136-41
Puranen,J orma 147
Q
–
R
ready-mades 154, 155
see also Duchamp, Marcel
‘real’ bodies 114, 115
‘real life’ 88, 89
realism 76-8, 80
reality 6, 68-93, 114, 115
‘referents’ 51
representation and reality 7 4-9
rhetoric 48
Riis, Jacob 36, 37, 78
Robinson, Henry Peach 81
Roesink, Sarah 144
Ruscha, Edward 166, 167
S-Z
S
Salkeld, Richard, works 2, 3, 21, 52, 53, 63, 148, 149, 1 52, 153, 164, 165, 17 4
Sander, August 105
scene manipulation 86
Scruton, Roger 148, 150
self-consciousness 97
semiotics 8, 44-67; identity and 97, 100-5, 110, 118-21; postmodernism 170; see also signifiers/signifieds
sex/sexuality 1 08
‘shadow catchers’ 14
Sherman, Cindy 42, 43, 82, 175
signifiers/signifieds 51, 52, 57, 66-7,87, 100-5
signs see semiotics
Sistine Chapel 29
Smith, April 135
social change 36
Soth, Alec 150, 151
sounds 48-9
speed camera sign 46
spying 123, 139
see also surveillance
Steichen, Edward 156, 157, 163
Stezaker, John 154, 155, 175
Stieglitz, Alfred 160
stillness 22
stop-motion images 25
‘straight’ photography 1 58, 160, 161
strangeness 64, 65
street photography 88, 89, 100, 104, 136, 140, 141
studio portraits 30, 102, 103
style 79
subjectivity 71, 105
surveillance 124, 132-4, 136, 140, 142; see also spying
symbolic signs 52, 66-7
Szarkowski, John 163-4, 169
T
Tagg, John 124, 127-8
Talbot, William Henry
Fox 14, 18, 19, 158
Tate Gallery 168, 169
terrorist threats 134
texts, pictures in 56, 57
theory, use of 8
time and light 20-5
transparency 77, 80
truth 12, 20, 26, 68-93
U
unconscious mind 24
V
van Eyck, Jan 13
Vertov, Dziga 122
Vietnam War 72-4, 86
Villevoye, Roy 101
voyeurism 123-4, 128, 136, 139, 142
W
Wall, Jeff 10, 82, 83, 175
Walski, Brian 85
Warhol, Andy 94, 95, 152
wedding photographs 32, 33
Western perceptions 34
wet collodion process 18, 38
Winogrand, Garry 79
words 48-9
world: changing 36, 37; seeing 34, 35
World Trade Centre, New York 90-3
Wunder, Karl Friedrich 30
XYZ
Yezhov, Nikolai 84, 85
Yokomizo, Shizuka 142-3
