Is Photography a language?

[Ellis Vener]

Someone brought up this issue in the "What is Criticism?" thread. I've been thinking about it and came to some obvious conclusions after a few days.

"Photography" is not a language. it is more akin to pen and paper (or stick and mud or , well you get the idea) . The pen and the paper don't know or care what "language' is being used: japanese, english, it is all grek to the paper and pen.

But some genres, mostly commercial photography, but also some forms of art, documentary, stock, photojournalistic and even erotic photography, are more akin to languages in that there are specific tropes and metaphors and similes that are expected, that are very useful, even expected by the viewer, in communicating the intellectual content & intent of the image.

Think about this for a minute, with reference to "fine art photography": the type of subject; the usual choice of media (large format black & white); the dramatic range of deep blacks through richly atmospheric shadows, detailed mid tones, up to the stratospheres of delicate highlights -- codified as the "Zone System" -- even the type of framing of the subject that is found acceptable- near/far compositions, etc.

Commercial photographs are expected to be boldly graphic.

I'm sure we can look at any set of random photographs and without much difficulty sort them into categories based on some not so random characteristics. sure some images cross over genres, but these are the exceptions, and usually are allowed when the audience is unsure of what to look for. we want these visual clues, we want to know how to respond, how to see , an image.

[Kevin J. Kolosky]

Ellis

I have been guilty of calling photography a language,but upon further thought, it should be called a form of communication, as I believe the word language is reserved for forms of communication that can be spoken or written rather than placed upon a medium by the use of silver salts or organic dyes.

I think that in many ways, photography can be used as a substitute for the written or spoken language. In your own commerical work, you are many times producing an image that says to the viewer "buy me", and by the same token a fine art nude photograph can convey to the viewer the beauty (or ugliness as the case may be)of a person's body better than many words can convey it.

The problem, or perhaps the benfit (as I see it) with any form of communication is that it can never be relied upon to be totally concise enough to convey the exact message, because we all think and feel just a little bit differently. You speak of the great themes in photography, and we all see these themes and have similar feelings and thoughts about them. But similar isn't the same, and never will be. And that is one of the beautiful things about photography. As viewers we don't necessarily have to place the same meaning upon the image as the maker of the image placed upon it, or we don't have to have the same feelings about the image as the maker had. We certainly may have close to those same meanings and feelings, but we have the freedom to choose whatever we desire.

Then the next question, I suppose, is whether that image can stand on its own. Or, Is it art. After all, when you really get right down to it, photography is basically about showing things to other people because it is physically impractical to actually get people to go with you to see the things you might to show them. So we substitute an "image" of the thing, and we then have to decide if it is "the thing" that is beautiful, ugly, or whatever, or is it the image of the thing that is beautiful, or ugly, or whatever. When the image satisfies as a substitution for the thing,(i.e stands on its own) then in my mind it becomes art.

Kevin

[Jonathan Brewer]

I had said in the 'What is Criticism' that Art is the highest form of Communication, and that's certainly what Photography is, one of the highest forms of communication.

Spoken and written language are abstractions that give you a ment al 'picture' of something, an image skips over the speech and writing and is more specific than language. It's not talking about something, it's the very image itself.

Just as abstract as a letter, but more evocative, even though a photograph is on a two dimensional piece of paper like a letter. Each individual mind interprets this image differently just like two people listening to the same conversation will hear different things. Far from nothing, that's the something I was talking about.

[Wim van Velzen]

Ellis, good question.

Language is a verbal representation of things and abstracts. When I say 'horse' you think about a certain mammal. The sound 'horse' only refers to the animal, but obviously isn't the animal itself.

There are different languages in the way that when I see a horse I (as a Dutchman) say 'paard'. And there are different meanings of the word horse, as a wealthy girl thinks about riding, an old farmer about working and a butcher about meat. (I.e. the difference between denotation and connotation).

In denotation photography is quite a universal language. An image of a horse is a horse for every human being (who has ever seen a horse! Art is not that universal, one has to have learnt to interpret tow demensional images and have enough knowledge of the world). And no one who sees an image of a young unclothed girl thinks it is a boy (allthough the word 'girl' could denotate a boy in some African language). But the connotation of the image will differ wildly between a western man and say a Talib or a gynocologist for that matter.

So 'is photography a language' can only be answered if we first talk about what a language is. And what is photography? The molecules in the photographic paper, the way we record things, the way we communicate things visually.

I hope my English is good enough to say (or should I say 'express'?, or 'tell'?) what I want...

[tim atherton]

Roland Barthes postulated that photography is a "half-language". But don't ask me to explain... it's a hell of a long time since I read it. Also, I believe that John Berger picks up on this in Another Way of Telling (imho - one of the best books about what photography is)

tim a

[Dominique Labrosse]

Ellis,

What a great question! I remember having quite a passionate discussion with a Teaching Assistant in a first year Communication class at Simon Fraser University about whether photography was a language with it's own 'syntax' of conventions. This discussion still informs my views about visual representation today.

An earlier poster defined language as verbal representation. It is accurate to apply this to photography and say that it is a medium of visual representation. A photograph cannot place someone in a particular place and time, it can only interpret that space/time moment and represent it two dimentoinally. Because photography is a form of representation there are descisions that the photographer must make about the scene in front of the camera. What lens/perspective/format to use? B&W or Colour? If colour what should I add or take away (filters, lighting etc.)? What should be included in the frame? What should be excluded?

In short, as photographers we make decisions - whether implicitly or explicitly about the construction of our images that inform the 'subtext' of the resulting photograph and create meaning.

Let's say that we were photojournalists assigned to cover a strike. The news editor is siding with big business and wants to villify the strikers. The photographer decides to shoot from below with a very wide lens so that the strikers loom over the lens, uses flash to give the faces 'monster light' and make the sky behind them look dark and threatening. That photograph is very different than if the news editor had asked the photographer to sympathize with the striking workers.

Big network national television news sets are constructed and lit very carefully to convey a sense of credibility. Generally they employ darker hues of green, brown, blue, grey etc. Colours that convey calm moods where logic and reason prevail over brash and bold sensationalism. Sensationalist and 'hypeish' sets use more saturated colours and more glamourous lighting. The yellow/orange sets of 'Entertainment Tonight' and 'E!' come immediately to mind.

I truly believe that photographers who are effective communicators are tuned in to the 'syntax' of visual communication and make decisions about how to represent their subjects based on the idea(s) they wish to communicate. I think if we really disect the media environment around us we will start to see a whole system of representation that we use to instantly set up relationships amongst the elements of our photographs.

Yes I believe that photography is a language; not as overtly defined as the spoken/written ones, but just as effective in the hands of a skilled practitioner.

[Kevin M Bourque]

In a broad sense, yes, photography is a language. It can communicate ideas ranging from the literal (The car hit the pole and the right front quarter panel is crumpled) to the emotional (Whoa! Look at those sunflowers! I've never seen anything so beautiful!) to the subliminal (Buy the new 2002 Mondo GT and the pretty girl in the front seat will have sex with you). These modes (and others) are often mixed and can display an astonishing variety of nuance.

Like all languages, it assumes that the sender and receiver are using a common set of symbols. Photographers and other artists often play with these symbols. We print the sky down to black or photograph the human body so that it looks like a landscape. Part of the fun is the ambiguity, in the surprise it offers to the viewer. Wow, a black sky! Feels kind of strange, but I like it! Even when we're being fairly literal, the viewer brings his own context and filters and often responds in ways the photographer could not anticipate. Everyone carries in their head an intricate and complex virtual reality simulation, no two of which are alike. When you think about it, it's a wonder we can communicate at all.

If you've got some time on your hands, check out two books by Stephen Pinker, "The Language Instinct" and "How the Mind Works". They're not about photography, but they are about communication, perception and consciousness. Reading them might not make you a better photographer, but you will come away with a new appreciation for the magic that goes on inside your head.

Good light in 2002, everyone.

[Kaatharine Thayer]

Is photography a language... language is a sequential, linear, left- brained form of communication; visual images, on the other hand, are communicated in a holistic, simultaneous, right-brained process that is very different from the way language is processed. So if photography is a language, it's a different kind of language than what we usually mean by language.

Someone said in another thread (I can't go back and look for the exact wording without losing what I've started here, so I'll paraphrase and hope I'm not too far off) that it's a mistake to try to read a photograph like a text, and I couldn't agree more. There was a review of John Cohen's work (I have to admit I'd never heard of him) in the NY Times recently; the reviewer said of a photograph taken from behind and above of a man walking down a dark staircase in an apartment building: "You wonder who he is, you wonder if his visit to the apartment he's just left was a success or a failure, you wonder where he's going next, you wonder.... etc etc" and I was thinking as I was reading this, no, I don't wonder any of those things. If I wanted a short story, I'd read Raymond Carver. I don't look for a short story, essay, or any kind of narrative in pictures, and I don't like the kind of pictures that seem to evoke narrative or require some kind of text explanation. In my opinion, visual images should communicate visually rather than through some text mediation; if they don't they are illustrations rather than images in their own right.

On the other hand, pictures can serve as metaphors, so they can serve the same purposes as language sometimes serves, but I think in a different way.

By now my darkroom should be up to temperature, so enough of this philosophizing. My 2cents.....

[Jonathan Brewer]

Peel away the veneer and the fact is that a Photographer holds his camera a certain way, fires the shutter a certain way, dials in a certain exposure, manipulates light, interprets what he sees and 'catches' that interpretation in his camera.

The image communicates suggestions about what the image the photographer took, and about the photographer him/herself, when we enjoy how the image was done, we've gotten 'something' about the message and the messenger.

You run into an old friend whose had a baby you've never laid eyes on, and you ask her to tell you about her kid. The minute she starts talking the baby, her demeanor, expression, voice, tells you not only about her kid, but conveys a message about her.

She's communicated everything she possibly can, but then you ask her if she's got a picture of her baby in her purse, so that you can get an idea of what the baby looks like, which cannot be visualized from spoken language.

[Jonathan Brewer]

If an individual has been blind since birth, there is no way someone could give that individual a 'mental picture' of a Rose or its red color, with a verbal description.

This individual can understand written and spoken language, but without his/her having experienced the Rose, the references won't give that individual an idea of what the object is.

A picture is an abstraction, a reference and communication about something, unlike language it tells you and shows you.

Now I'm gonna go play with my kids.