BARTHES

Roland Barthes in his article, “Rhetoric of an Image” speaks about the depth and various meaning that can be found inside an image. Barthes asks the questions, “How does a meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond”? Using advertisement as an example he shows how this type of image is frank and direct. He never talked about subliminal messaging that is found often in advertising. Advertisements that have a cleaver way of making you want their product or service, feeling like you somehow are not complete without it, for example sexual activity drawn into liquor ads or Coca Cola’s ‘cool’ factor.

Barthes discusses the use of text, how it creates a message and becomes the creator over the image. I find this to be true as captions attached to photographs tell you how to feel and interpreter the scene you are looking at. However I believe the same can be done by a photographer as they choose to focus or blur certain images or parts of images drawing your attention to a certain part of the photograph possibly making you look at the image in a different way.

Barthes compares the pureness of a photograph with the less pure drawing saying that, “The denotation of the drawing is less pure than that of the photograph, for there is no drawing without style.” There is no art form that is without style because all artists but into their artwork a piece of themselves which makes it unique and individualized. Is there any photo taken without a photographer’s style? Isn’t photography an art form as well?