Three Different approaches to Representation

1.       Reflective or Mimetic Approach

2.       Intentional Approach

3.       Social Constructionist Approach

Photographic Truth

all camera-generated images  . . . Bear the cultural legacy of still photography, which historically has beenregarded as a more objective practice than say, painting or drawing

Myth

hidden set of rules and conventions through whichmeanings, which are specific to certain groups, are made to seem universal and given for a whole society.

Positivism

a philosophy that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century; holds that scientific knowledge is the only authentic knowledge and concerns itself with truths about the world.

Ideology

ideologies are defined as the broad but indispensable sharedsets of values and beliefs through which individuals liveout their complex relations in a range of social networks.

Semiotics

A theory of signs concerned with the ways things (words, images, and objects) are vehicles for meaning.

Connotation and Denotation

CONNOTATIVE meaning of the image refers to culturally and historically specific meanings and its viewers’ lived feltknowledge of those circumstances – all that the imagemeans to

them personally and socially.

DENOTATIVE meaning of the image refers to its literal,

explicit meaning

Image and Icons

•  An icon is an image that refers to something outside of its individual concepts, something (or someone) that has great symbolic meaning.  Often perceived to represent universal concepts, emotions and meanings.

•  An image produced in a specific culture, time, and place might be interpreted as having broader meaning and the capacity to evoke similar responses across all cultures and in al viewers.