Roland Barthes - Image - Music - Text

The Photographic Message

Roland Barthes takes the press images as an example of how a photograph is a message. A message with a source of emission, a channel of transmission and a point of reception. But whatever the origin and destination of the message, the photograph is not simply a product or a channel but also an object endowed with a structural autonomy. The structure is not isolated, it communicates with another structure: text. Both structure occupy their own defined spaces.

Most imitative arts:

- Denoted, image of reality itself

- Connoted, what society thinks of it

19 Connotation can apply to photo

21-22, denotation and connotation can become confused by viewer

23 Objects naturalize the photograph, make it seem spontaneous (makes connotation seem like denotation)

25 Text as parasitic to the photo. Text illustrates the photo.

27 Connotation works historically

27-8 “Signification, in short, is the dialectical movement which resolves the contradiction between cultural and natural man”

28 photograph is immediately categorized, is all about the way it’s perceived

30 Denotation only occurs in traumatic images

The photographic paradox

What is the content of the photographic message? What does it transmit? From object to photo there is a reduction (proportion, perspective, color) but no transformation: there is no code between object and image. The image is a perfect analogon of reality - that's what defines a photograph. The special status of the photographic image: it is a message without a code.