Barthes – The Photographic Message

As I explained in my previous post, over the next few posts I plan to document the key influences on my ‘Lifting the Curtain’ work. I will look at this both in terms of the ideas of critical thinkersand the work of other photographers.Barthes book ‘Image Music Text’ has been of particular relevance. (1) In particular, the essays ‘The Photographic Message’ (2) and ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ (3) have been highly instructive. This post reviews the former. It will be followed by a further post considering the latter.The Photographic MessageThis essay considers what Barthes calls the ‘press photograph’, which he describes as a photograph accompanied by text in the form of a title, caption and possibly an article.Barthes proposes what he calls ‘the photographic paradox’.(4) On face value Barthesperceives the photograph itself as a ‘message without a code. (5) A photograph transmits meaning through its representation of a literal reality, albeit in a reduced form (proportion, colour, perspective...