Okay, so this week’s Looking at Photographs reading on photography made me realise how much I need to broaden my vocabulary. It was such a dense reading but a number of points I’ve found related to my current understanding of semiotics.

According to Victor Burgin, semiotics identifies “no ‘language’ of photography, no signifying system” but rather, “a heterogeneous complex of codes upon which photography may draw”. In other words, an image is open to interpretation if it weren’t bound by a caption or title. An interpretation that is instead, bound by their own experience and what makes sense to themselves.

Photography is also the middle of the spectrum between a painting and film. To differentiate between the mediums is to know that photographs are “offer themselves gratuitously”. If I were to mix photography with film, it would be considered experimental film. For instance, La Jetee’s use of audio, transitions and still images.

http://www.brixpicks.com/la-jetee-a-17810.html

Chris Marker’s experimental, science fiction film La Jetee (1962) perpetuates the perception of time lapse and movement from the point of view of the two main characters. The photographs are devised to trap the audience into the stillness of the images in order to empathise with the characters of the film that are trapped in time itself. With the use of transitions and subtle live action footage, La Jetee focuses on the narrative convention of time travel in order to explore dimensions of the human psyche and condition. Even though photographs are “received… as an environment”, the images are structured in a narrative order by the director (with the help of audio) so that the audience consumes a particular story and message. This however, still allows the audience to interpret the content they consume from a narrative perspective.