Assignment 2

After showing quite a few people my photographs, adding more and then adding captions, I have gathered quite a varied set of stories. I think the point is to see how much information is needed to understand what is going on in a photograph, because with pictures there can be so many different meanings. I have found that it is more difficult than I expected, I think I could have started with better photographs though.

Barthes said that we are a 'civilisation of writing'. I have found that though the people I asked understood the photographs, in order to put across the specific story I needed to use captions. I definately agree with this point!

I asked my flat mate, Danny (19, student) what he thought of the first three photos. He said that it looked like there was a theme of waiting. The keys were waiting to be used, as was the wheel barrow, and the elderly people were waiting on a bench. He said that it was to show how the old people had all the time in the world to relax on the bench as they were retired. When I showed him the fourth photo he said it was to show the people having fun, continuing the theme of time.

I thought that was quite an interesting analysis of the photographs, not the story I was looking for though.

I added a picture of bottles of alcohol to see if that made any difference.

I showed my friend Chris (20, student) what he thought of the pictures. He gave me a very long and detailed story about the couple. He said the people walked home from their trip to the high street when the lady started complaining about her sore leg. The man realised that he had lost his keys, but knew his daughter who lived 15 mins away had a spare set. He then wheeled his wife to his daughters house where they had a drink to make the lady feel better.

Again not the story I was looking for!

Adding these photos did not work as hoped, so I added captions and put the photos in order.

To the photo of the elderly couple I put 'Enjoying the sunshine', under the bottles of alcohol I put 'Time to play!', under the keys I wrote 'Lost or found', and under the picture of the wheelbarrow I put 'Home time'.

I then showed my friend Louise (19, student) and asked what she thought the story was. She said the old people were enjoying their day out, decided to go for a few drinks, lost their keys and ended up in a wheel barrow.

Although I finally got the story I was looking for, I basically had to tell the person exactly what was happening! It just shows that there can be so many meanings to one picture (a picture speaks a thousand words, and can a thousand different stories!?)

To be honest, I am not sure whether this was a success or failure but it definately proved that pictures can have more than one meaning.