Dave MaceyMA                     Photographer

This is also an objective exercise, one where we do nothing more than recognise the objects within the photograph.  We relate the knowledge we have of our surroundings, the actual physical world, and so avoids any ambiguity within the denotation because the objects are recognisable.  If the objects were difficult to comprehend then we would have trouble reading the image, the visual language would stutter and become confused.  With this image though, this is not the case, it is well exposed and shows good line and tone which aids our denotation and can be easily related to actuality.

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This then leads us naturally to the connotations, the second level of perception within a photograph. Denotation and connotation are always linked and as Daniel Chandler, a media and communication lecturer at Aberystwyth and author of Semiotics: The Basics, emphasises “Consequently, whilst theorists may find it analytically useful to distinguish connotation from denotation, in practice such meanings cannot be neatly separated. Most semioticians argue that no sign is purely denotative - lacking connotation” (Visual memory, 2014). 

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One of the strengths of James Matchwey’s image is the lack of ambiguity, of how strong the connotations are to a particular understanding of the image.  For instance, the scythe is strongly connected to the mythical figure of death, it is the tool used to harvest the soul, and is being carried towards a house that is fire damaged.  The suggestion here is that people have died, maybe not in the house but we are in an area where terrible acts have happened.  This is one possibility of how a photograph is read, by using connotations to imply a definition and the definition will always rely on either our personal knowledge or cultural heritage or both combined. As Berger says in Ways of Seeing "We accept it in so far as it corresponds to our own observation of people, gestures, faces, institutions.  This is possible because we still live in a society of comparable social relations and moral values" (Berger, 1972, P14)

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However connotations are not explicit within the image.  We do not see the scythe harvesting the soul, or any dead bodies, but because of the items depicted we interpret these items in a certain way and so it becomes subjective.  It relies on our own life experiences and culture, or what values or definitions we connect with certain objects, and this is how a visual language is constructed using our environment.  We use knowledge to recognise what we see and then another set of knowledge to understand what it means, the explicit and the implicit or the denotation and the connotation.

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Documentary photography uses this system of denotation and connotation but the photographer can only have control over one of these elements, the denotation.  This is because he is photographing what is there and so their definition is explicit, it cannot be mistaken for a different object unless intentionally photographed with a level of ambiguity from the photographer.  This can be done with creative use of depth of field, or angle of view or exposure, but even with using these tools the photographer is being subjective rather than objective because it is different to what the viewer expects to see.  For a photographer to practice the genre of documentary photography the denotation has to be realistic, the image to be understandable to the viewer.

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For instance in this image by Henri Cartier Bresson we can see steps, a handrail, a pavement, a kerb and a cyclist.  The image has a strong denotation and Bresson has avoided using ambiguity within the denotation so the image is recognisable and understandable.  This then makes the image realistic and so falls within the criteria for documentary photography.  Consequently, because the image is realistic and can be understood, the viewer can imagine themselves being at the top of the stairs looking down.  In other words it is 

easy for the viewer to put themselves into the picture because it is realistic.

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However because there is denotation there is also connotation as the two always work together.  Because the cyclist is blurred, there is the suggestion of speed.  It is suggested because this is a still image and as the viewer has, hopefully, seen the effect of motion before, recognise it and associate it with movement within a still image.  All of this is connotation, it relies on the reservoir of knowledge that the viewer has and the photographer can only imply this meaning.  It can be done forcefully to avoid ambiguity or it can be done subtly, but the photographer cannot explicitly depict a connotation, it can only ever be implied.

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But another aspect of documentary photography is the concept of photographic truth.  If what is depicted within the image is realistic and the connotation lacks ambiguity then the image is believable.  It contains what the viewer would assume to be a strong element of reality, and so an element of truth.  This in turn means that the event actually happened as this is a realistic depiction of those events, the event becomes difficult to refute because there is documentary evidence, the photograph, that it happened a certain way. 

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This outcome which is a combination of denotation and connotation, of semiotics, can be summarised as the veracity of the image.  Graham Clarke describes this process when he states that “from its beginnings the photograph has been understood through its ability to record an objective image of events with an assumed veracity that painting and drawing could never claim with equal authority.  The cliché that the camera cannot lie is, thus, part of a deep but misplaced notion of the camera’s veracity as an agent of recording” (Clarke, 1997, P145-146).  So by a photograph being able to produce a realistic image, the viewer believes what we see, even though the view has originally been interpreted by the photographer and then presented as a version of the truth.

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