Graham Clarke - How Do We Read A Photograph?

In this second chapter of his book, Clarke focuses on the complex process of reading a photograph and explains it by giving different examples of photographs and how you can 'read' them. 

He begins to talk about how looking at a photograph is quite similar to looking at a text.Thus we don't simply see an image, but we read it and there is a number of preconceived notions that influence the way we read this image. This kind of reminds me a lot of Berger's Ways of Seeing and of his quote 'The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe', and I think that this is also what Clarke says about reading a photograph, it always depends on multiple factors. 

He then goes on to analyse the photograph and its importance and its role in our society saying that: 'The photograph both mirrors and creates a discourse with the world, and is never, despite its often passive way with things, a neutral representation.' This is a quote that I'd definitely want to include in my critical introduction about my final project because I think that it perfectly sums up what we are trying to do when we think about and work on our projects. We want to show the world but at the same time we want to make people think about what we showed and thus create a discourse. And I have definitely realized when looking at my first pictures for my project, that a photograph is NEVER neutral, there is always a certain message we want to bring across. In my case, I want to open people's eyes and make them aware of the social alienation they encourage by their hyperconnectivity. It is a strong message, that is pointing fingers at each and every one of us and thus makes all of us feel kind of guilty. 

However, Clarke continues to argue that the photograph is one of the most difficult and complex forms of representation, although we often don't realize that. 

He says that  when reading a photograph we have to 'enter into a series of relationships which are 'hidden', by the illusory power of the image before our eyes.' So it isn't enough to just passively see at the picture, but we have to also think about the photographer, who has his own ideas and feelings towards the object that he photographs. 

Clarke then goes on to put the theory into practice and tries to 'read' different photographs from other artists and when he did that, there was one more thing that I found particularly interesting. He mentioned Barthes' concept of the punctum and  the studium, which basically describes two different factors that shape our relationship to an image and hence also the way we read it. Studium suggest looking at the cultural, linguistic and even political interpretation, meaning the literal meaning, it is basically the denotation of a photograph. Whereas Punctum describes the connotation we give a picture, by looking at it in a deeper more emotional way that is often also related to our own experience.

This distinction was particularly interesting for me and my project idea because I think that when looking at my photographs people are going to have loads of personal experience they can relate to it, and I'm so curious to know what detonations as well as connotations they associate with my images.