Chapter 1 Response

This was an interesting chapter for me to read, coming from an English major perspective--I've heard nearly all of the terms used in this chapter before, but it was always from a literary perspective, applied to words. It was interesting, then, to see the terms applied instead to visual images, and to see the similarities and differences in how the terms apply to images versus how they apply to text.

For example, I've only ever heard denotation and connotation used to refer to the meanings of words, instead of images. And before reading this chapter, I had never even considered that denotation and connotation could be applied to images, and yet apparently I was wrong. The way the textbook defines and describes how they can be applied to images makes sense, too, since images can invoke non-literal interpretations (as shown in the textbook).

I also found it interesting how this chapter discussed the dichotomy between photographs being both clinical "evidence" and emotional works of art--I think previously I had been subconsciously aware of this dichotomy, but had never truly thought about it until now. It is interesting that we still tend to hold photos as evidence of truth, though I think it also depends on the context and content of a photograph. Photos of crime evidence, for example, or photos of still life or photos taken by the average, casual photographer (aka a mother taking a photo of her children), have a higher degree of "truth" placed upon them than, say, photographs of celebrities (which are almost always heavily photoshopped, as has become common knowledge) or photographs taken by professional photographers (which are likely heavily staged and/or manipulated in other ways).