Author Archive
Types and Degrees
there is a lot of connection with the picture and the viewer, as there is a lot of questions that the viewers wants to ask about the picture, this could be connoted by the messages from the picture. Such as why are the children in the nude? This is a form of intertextuality and the communication between the viewer to the picture. There are lots of communications in which a picture can connect with the viewer, this can be seen by types and degrees. Types are things that look at architextuality, hypertextuality, hypotextuality, metatextuality and paratextuality.Whereas degrees focuses on reflexivity, alteration, explicitness, criticalty to comprehension, scale of adoption and structural unboundedness.
Chandler 2006 (206)
Accessed 17th November
Binary Oppositions
One of the main themes of Sally Mann’s photograph of Emmett, Jessie and Virginia is the use of power. By looking at the use of myths Binary Oppositions could also be connoted by looking at the picture. This is looking at two oppositions, an example of this would be boy:girl. This example could also be used for the picture of the children. By using binary oppositions, it helps to look at the structure and looks at the messages of the picture. So by looking at the binary opposition of boy and girl the viewer can clearly see that the position of the children, connotes the girls on each side of their brother. This would then link to other binary opposition of being shy and confidant, with the girls being on the same side as being confidant and a sense of power. There is also a binary opposition of old and young, this is the contrast with the background location and the children. As the location around them is unclear and out of focus giving this old effect, whereas the children are in focus and are proud young children.
Le’vi-Stauss has an answer to binary opposition which is ‘These binary oppositions so produced are the sympotoms in myth of the way the human mind work, the way in which language and thought operate’.
http://www.blackwellreference.com/publuc/tocnode?id=g9780631207535_chunk_g97806312075355_ss1-14
accessed 17th November
Myths
Another myth in this picture would be truth and family. Both myths are very important to the picture and to the children. As the background is out of focus it gives a sense of a dream world, and how the children are standing in front of it. This connotes how their location is a sense of family and how they are standing in front to guard the location. The sense that the children are in the nude connotes the idea of truth and how the children aren’t hiding anyone, or trying to be to be like anyone else.
Myths
The picture of Sally Mann’s children has a lot of meaning and messages behind it, this is connoted by the signifiers and the signifieds. Some examples of a signifier contrast with the boy being in the middle of the picture, with his two sisters in each side of him. This connotes the signifieds of the children’s powers and how strong they seem . Another signifier would be how the children are looking straight back at the photographer. The signifieds of this would be how the children are looking strong, almost like no one can get past them.
The picture has also got a lot of myths, which is a 2nd order connotation that the viewers will be able to see by looking at the picture. One myth that is represented by the picture is nature. This is connoted by the children being in the nude, and how the girls have their hair down without any clips or hair style. By having the myth of nature the picture seems pure and happy, which connotes the location in the background of the picture and how the children love where they live.
From looking deeper at the picture of Sally Mann’s children Emmett, Jessie and Virginia, I can see that there are a range of emotions from the children’s facial expressions. I feel that the children look strong and confidant as their eye contact is looking straight down the camera. This is also connoted through the use of body language with the youngest daughter Virginia having her hand on her hip and her head facing the camera. She is also slightly in front of her two siblings which connotes the contrast as she is the youngest and it almost shows a bodyguard effect. The idea of tough can also be connoted in a range of photos in ‘Immediate Family’ with the two girls dressing in women’s clothing and pretending to smoke.
On Emmetts arm there are friendship bracelets this could be to clearly represent the how the siblings are and that they are all friends.
Sally Mann Immediate Family
PHAIDON
Afterword By Reyolds Price
Published on the U.K. 1992
Accessed on the 30th October
Group Work
As a group we all got together and wrote on this diagram exploring this range of themes of the picture Sally Mann’s children. In the middle of the diagram was ‘your subject’ this being Sally Mann, and from there, there were four main headings, which were cultural contexts, secondary research, primary research and social and historical contexts. From there we then made others headings, connoted by arrows coming off the four main headings, to do with that category. For example for social and historical contexts we found out that Sally Mann was the photographer of the year for the Time magazine in 2001. From looking primary research we found out that the children in her pictures were her children and that they were called Emmett, Jessie and Virginia, and that are 65 images within the collection called ‘Immediate Family’. By using this diagram it gave as a lot information about Sally Mann, and the range of different areas to look at.
Location
The location of the photograph of Emmett, Jessie and Virginia was taken in Sally Mann’s home town Southwestern Virginia. From her book Sally Mann writes ‘The place is important; the time is summer, but the place is home and the people here are my family’. From reading this quote by Sally Mann there is a strong meaning behind all of the photographs in ‘Immediate Family’. This is represented as Sally Mann wanted to capture everything she loved around her in her photos, from the place she has always lived and her family. It also connotes that it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is, but that Sourthwestern Virginia will always be the same and Sally Mann’s home.
Sally Mann Immediate Family
PHAIDON
Afterword By Reynolds Price
Published in U.K. in 1992
Accessed on the 25th October
Immediate Family
From looking at Sally Mann’s book on ‘Immediate family’ I have found out that the three children in her photograph are her children Emmett, Jessie and Virginia. The book was dedicated to her husband Larry with a selection of 65 pictures of their children, using a wide range of different camera angles to capture the perspective of the picture.
Virginia is Sally Mann’s youngest daughter who was named after her mother, this is connoted in some of her pictures called ‘The Two Virginias’.
Sally Mann, Immediate Family
PHAIDON
Afterword By Reynolds Price
Published in the U.K. 1992
Accessed on the 18th October
Questions
This is one of Sally Mann’s photographs taken from her exhibition ‘immediate family’. The picture is a mid shot connoting three children in the centre of the photo. The picture also has good use of depth of field with the children being in focus and the background being out of focus. All of the children in the photograph have a fixed expression as they look straight at the photographer.
From looking at this black and white picture there are a range of different questions that you want to find out such as;
Who are the three children?
Why are the children in the nude?
Where is the location?
What is the relationship between the photographer and the children?
What year was the picture taken?
How old are the children?
Why is the background out of focus?
What camera did Sally Mann use?
Why is the picture in black and white?
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