Reading Photographs

Description

Reading Photographs
An Introduction to the Theory and Meaning of Images
By Richard Salkeld

ISBN 9781350092075
Published September 15, 2020 by Routledge
184 Pages

Reading Photographs is a clear and inspiring introduction to theories of representation and visual analysis and how they can be applied to photography. Introducing the development of photography and different approaches to reading images, the book looks at elements such as identity, gaze, psychoanalysis, voyeurism and aesthetics.Striking visual examples are used to illustrate the text and engaging case studies delve deeper into issues raised within each chapter, with brief activity points to allow the reader to apply relevant theories to their own practice.

Chapter 1: What is a photograph?
Invention: the marriage of chemistry and optics
Time and light
Uses and applications
The camera: an evolution
Case study: Chuck Close
Chapter 2: Reading the signs
Where do meanings come from?
Language: words, sounds and images
Semiotics: the study of signs
Ideology: ideas, practices and beliefs
Case study: Anthony Barrett
Chapter 3: Truth and lies
What is ‘real’?
Representation and reality
Facts and fiction
Case study: Thomas Hoepker
Chapter 4: Identity
People and portraits
Signifying identity
LookingThe body
Case study: Marc Garanger
Chapter 5: Big Brother is watching you
The modern world
The bad, the mad and the ‘other’
Surveillance society: the Panopticon
Who is looking at whom?
Public spaces – private lives
Case study: Shizuka Yokomizo
Chapter 6: Aesthetics
But is it art?
Photography cannot be art
What is art?
Photography as art – the history of an idea
Into postmodernism
Case study: Richard Billingham
Conclusion
Bibliography
References
Index
Picture credits
Acknowledgements

Author

Having held the posts of course leader on both the Visual Arts and History of Art and Visual Culture courses at the University of Gloucestershire, UK, Richard Salkeld is now senior lecturer in the university’s Art and Design department, teaching undergraduate students of photography.