Photography's Mythic Objectivity

Panzani Advertisement from Barthes’s Rhetoric of the Image.

 

Notes on Barthes’s Rhetoric of the Image:

 Linguistic message within image;

    Denoted; What text is there?
    Connoted; What symbolism is there in the presentation of text?

Literal messages;

    Representations of specific things in the image. 

  Accompanied linguistic messages to the image;

    Anchor; What exactly am I looking at? (do these elements create a narrative?)
    Relay; What should I think when I see this? (functionality/meaning)

  Symbolic messages;

    Cultural implications of specific objects represented. (bag, ingredients)
    Cultural implications of juxtapositions. (symbolic color, cuisine, implied actions)
    Cultural implications of image classifications. (still life)

 Denoted message;

    Does the photograph exist as a trace of, or an equivalent of truth? How much truth?
    Is the photograph always a lie? Are there obvious deceptive elements?
    How can these ideas co-exist?

Connoted message;

   Our complete reading of the image/text. (We should want to eat this or we see we are being manipulated or both)


Disclaimer; This is a mash-up of my notes from this essay and may not reflect the author's intent.