Test Bed 3

                                      Sequencing Meaning within a Single Photograph

The main thrust of this article is to describe a visual analytical technique, which informs the basic examination of a photograph. The employment of this is based on a notion that prior to a detailed unloading of the critical elements, the maker of the work, and the reader of the resulting image, use uncoded responses to make sense of an image's impact. This can be more clearly explained by recognising that instincts, regardless of their sustained cultural  influences, reveal a sense of meaning before resorting to conventional language. This is a brief moment, because we convert images into words almost immediately in order to fit our perceptions in the internal and external communication chain. However, this nano-moment can be given a stretching agent to see if emotive reactions reveal  properties that would otherwise be hidden. The technique uses something like a mood board in storyboard form. The photograph is dissected visually, and is laid out in a pictorial order that reflects the building blocks of the structure. I am assuming that if words are inadequate unless they get to the real roots of meaning, we must seek alternative ways to reinforce deeper insights by directly addressing the visual evidence. I have to admit that on the face of it this is a tall order, as the naming of things is embedded in our cognitive processes of recognition.

It is a starting point, but more importantly opens a door to schematic rendering, more in common with diagrammatic techniques, than ordered linguistic coding. I do recognise the problem of employing something that says it avoids the intervention of discursive verbal language, but by visually abstracting the constituent signs it is possible obviate dialectical conventions anchored in words. This extension of the process will be more fully discussed and described in Test Bed 4, but for the following article I am looking at more fundemental things, before considering schematics (an adapted diagrammatical form) as a way to examine the arguments for a priori hermeneutics (the way we derive meanings from symbolic expressions).

The photographic image is not static, it moves because it is time based (the time taken to unload the meaning). The term 'stills' is used by photographers to separate their discipline from the companion form - motion pictures, but here it is neither a still nor a movie. 

The viewer orders and constructs an image's facets in a sequential way. This unfolds through several stages analogous to photo-roman, but here it is extracted from a single image rather than a sequence of separately frozen instances edited into a narrative structure.

The extrapolation of elements is achieved when the eye is drawn to discrete and significant components recognised by the individual reader's preconceptions. The intelligent placement of these elements by the artist is the principal mechanism for influencing these readings, and  where this is successful the artwork talks directly to the beholder. The reader, however, deconstructs (sub-consciously) the information, and reforms any perceived meaning by rebuilding and consolidating their personal understanding of the exegesis. This means that using a critical process to verify or reject the signified intentions of the artist, depends on, whether or not, the reader's critique is dependant or independent.

As an example of how this might work, the pictures below take us through a possible strategy for identifying the signifiers and describing the signifieds. I am only showing a process in this instance, and not a definitive interpretation of the material, as using the same signifiers, the reader might arrive at different interpretative conclusions. 

I should say a little about the practical acquisition of the photograph because it will have bearing on my own thoughts about the outcomes, 

I shot the picture immediately on encountering the scene, more out of intuition than any considered observation or planning. My stimulus was a general feeling that a diverse pattern of human activity was before me, and that something might be happening. 

I sometimes rely on instinct to guide my decision making, and this probably explains my misplaced insensitivities to planned issue-driven photography. Luck plays an important part in what has been called the 'decisive moment'. So in the moment before I clicked the shutter, the ensemble had aligned to form the image you can see in the first frame. This, for me, was not so unusual an approach as I have used it on many occasions, but as can be seen in the work shown in the gallery, which concludes this page, I have also produced work more considered in its acquisition. Both approaches can employ the process I am discussing.

The interval between encountering and capturing the scene was of interest to me, as I wanted to be unencumbered by any preconceptions and prejudices, and that is why I think of this photograph as a snapshot, because that is what it is.

Reading from right to left, we first establish the subject and the object; 'A young couple, kissing at an outdoor cafe table'. The third and fourth images are manipulated (into meta-moments) to infer a signifying chain. It assumes that the elderly man has observed the young couple, and is suffering a degree of personal regret that such experiences have passed him by. The flipping of the third vignette, is a pictorial device used to convey the idea of going beyond the actuality to underpin the sense; an inversion of the meaning by changing changing its aspect.  Similarly, the tonal rendering of the fourth frame reflects the sentiment of his gaze. In this case, a possible nostalgic regard.

We can see that signifiers do not exist on their own because the things signified cross over and intermingle to extend the length of the symbolic chain beyond the visual text. This leads us reasonably to the fifth image (the man in a world of his own, in spite of the presence of his companion), which has signified meanings, working on extrinsic spatial and temporal lines. Is he contemplating the thoughts we have devised for him, or is he bored, tired and fed up? If this is true then the foregoing considerations are misleading, and a reversal of the subject might be adopted; 'A man sits at a table not looking at his wife'. In the rest of the picture things now proceed, uninvolved on one level, and dynamically influential on the other. The man's alienation now comes to the front.

The fifth to seventh frames, augment both these scenarios and ground the implied joylessness of the elderly couple. Using a framing division between the couple accentuates the idea of separation, and propounds the wider antithetical properties to be found in the complete photograph.

The balloon is an ironic and iconic, but unreliable, symbol. It is tied behind her chair. She must have sat down with the balloon already attached, but it is there in the picture-moment, and reinforces a possibility that any joy is now behind them. It is a form of separation, but only in the sense that the picture constructs a void in their relationship, by virtue of the man's body language, and the woman's detachment by not being active and identifiable.

The ninth picture, removes all these speculations, and instead contrasts two things; the reality of the event versus the reading of the pictorial construction. If the analysis has no basis in truth, the scheme will have become a mere fictive exercise. If the process has opened interpretations that get under the skin of the visual material, then a value has been added to the photograph.

The final three small images are indexical, and normalise the scene by saying the purpose of the gathering is for people to have their respective refreshments, in a venue of their choice. The rest is what we feel compelled to read into the picture, making it only right for the judgements of the individual viewer to be respected. Given my practical approach, I feel I can also be part of that group, and feel free to question the picture, as participant observer.

The images in the gallery below can be used to test this schematic process, 

whether or not they are snapshots, or considered compositions .

Click on an image to enter the slideshow.