“ROLAND BARTHES
...photograph does not translate reality into a sign system, like language. A photograph is a pure denotation and the denoted message is absolutely analogical said Barthes. As I mentioned before, Barthes in this essay likes to make classifications. He notes that there are ways to analyze connotative meaning of photographs. One is so common in our ages: Trick effects done by computer with special programs. Or handling the pose of the person photographed. In addition there are objects, photogenia, aesthetisim and syntax. However, the use of text with the photograph is most important. Barthes discuss 2 relation between text and images. In the first, the image illustrates the text and in the second the text is parasitic on the image. In his second essay Rhetoric of the Image, Barthes chooses advertising images as the object of his study because he thinks that in advertising, the signification of the image is undoubtedly intentional. Barthes notes that in the linguistic level of analysis of advertisment (textand advertisment) there are both denotative and a connotative meaning; a coded iconic image (which is not like in The Photographic Message in which objects are placed in a photograph); and a non-coded iconic message (nearly parallel to the analogic, denotative level discussed in The Photographic Message. After articulating the three levels of signification, Barthes ark himself another question: “What are the functions of the linguistic message with regard to the iconic message?” and he find two functions: first is anchoring, in which the text helps the reader choose the correct level of perception. The other is relaying, in which the text is in a complemantary relationship with the image (like dialogue balloons in comic strips. According to Barthes the pure denotated image is impossible. However, receiver still recognize the analogic relation between the photograph and the real world. The study of the connotative level is the rhetoric of the image. In his last book Camera Lucida, he is going to approach photography in a different angle. Since he was looking at photography from a scientific dimension in The Photographic Message and Rhetoric of the Image now he examine it more amateur. The book is mostly about his search for his mother photograph. But he wants the appropriated photograph to his mother in his memory. He went through all the pictures of his mother - from the most recent ones to ones of her childhood and finally he found what he wanted. A little girl in winter garden. Why this photograph? Barthes says that this is because his mother is so natural in front of the camera. There is no pose, no connataions of photograph as he mention...