Friday, July 6, 2012

Assignment #3


“What is the signifying structure of ‘illustration’?  Does the image duplicate certain of the informations given in the text by a phenomenon of redundancy or does the text add a fresh information to the image?” – Barthes p273
I have never really given thought to this question asked by Barthes.  What came first the chicken or the egg?  I’ve always thought the illustration added to what the author has written, but it seems that we place a very large emphasis on images that we might depend on them to substitute our imagination.  Obviously, I’m on the fence with this question.  What do you think?

“the operation of the drawing (the coding) immediately necessitates a certain division between the significant and the insignificant:  the drawing does not reproduce everything (often it reproduces very little), without its ceasing, however, to be a strong message; whereas the photograph, although it can choose its subject, its point of view and its angle, cannot intervene within the object (except by trick effects). In other words, the denotation of the drawing is less pure than that of the photograph, for there is no drawing without style. – Barthes p 277
            This reminds me of a comment I posted on someone’s first blog assignment.  It brings up a thought that I have had before about photography being an art.  I feel that painting, drawing, sketching, etc. a scene or an object to be more of an art than just photographing it.  That is not to say I don’t appreciate photographs of pretty scenery, because I do and I will often purchase them in forms of postcards.  I just believe that the time, effort, and talent that it takes to create such a picture is more valuable than a photograph.

 A little off season adjustment that had to be made... I wasn't very happy at first, but I'm still excited to watch football in the fall

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