4. Blog

Initial thoughts

1st April

Alex Salmond in 2007 with Nicola Sturgeon,
then his deputy and now party leader

DAVID MOIR/REUTERS

The intention is still to go with Brandt’s Northumbrian miner, but in the preamble Alec Salmond might get a mention.

Times, 29th March https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/8b1b6a82-701a-11ea-95ac-727c046e7b5d?shareToken=27d2579396460c48663d94552d2520b3

[15Apr] The headline phrase appears to be relatively recent. Although Marlowe referred to Helen of Greece as ‘the face that launch’d a thousand ships’ in around 1600 [ref] and Ibsen rated 1000 words as worth less than a deed at the end of C19th, this rate of exchange for words and pictures was first stated at the beginning of C20th in several speeches and advertisements in the US. It has come to mean that a single image might be able to represent what it would otherwise take many words to explain. This is demonstrably the case in some situations such as instructions for self-assembly furniture, but it is also true that images can undermine or even negate any number of spoken and written words and a recent example, noted at the time with this essay in mind

[18Apr] OCA have announced a short course called Photography as Language and the advertising material opens with ‘To quote the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”, but which words?
Frederick R. Bernard probably never dreamt of digital photography and social media when he came up with his immortal line. In today’s world, the idea of photography as language is critical in considering how we share and consume information.’
https://www.oca.ac.uk/courses/photography-as-language/


First Stab – 30th April

Bill Brandt
Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937
© the estate of Bill Brandt
Alex Salmond in 2007 with Nicola Sturgeon, then his deputy and now party leader
© David Moir/Reuters

The headline phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, appears to be relatively recent. Although Marlowe referred to Helen of Greece as ‘the face that launch’d a thousand ships’ in around 1600 [ref] and Ibsen rated 1000 words as worth less than a deed at the end of 19th century, this rate of exchange for words and pictures was first stated at the beginning of 20th century in several speeches and advertisements in the US. It has come to mean that a single image might be able to represent what it would otherwise take many words to explain. This is demonstrably the case in some situations such as instructions for self-assembly furniture, but it is also true that images can replace or reinforce or can undermine or even negate any number of spoken and written words. A recent example, noted at the time with this essay in mind is the case of Alex Salmond, who in March this year was ‘cleared of sexual assault allegations made by nine women after a trial at Edinburgh High Court’ (Hutcheon, 2020), but, despite the court’s decision, is widely regarded and frequently depicted as failing to respect colleagues’ rights, and his taking advantage of his position of authority, as in fig. B1, a thirteen-year-old photograph used in The Times when reporting the trial.

Falling Man
September 11, 2001

© Richard Drew (AP)

Some images need an explanation before they can be appreciated and understood, a notable example being Richard Drew’s Falling Man (fig. C1) which at first might appear to be an abstract, then the body is noticed and the photograph becomes sinister, but when the title subtly reveals, by means of the date, that this was one of nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attack, the full horror of this man’s predicament and choices becomes apparent.

By contrast, other images need no words for a meaning to be resolved in a viewer’s mind (or, at least so far as this particular viewer is concerned) and one such is the subject of this essay, Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal by Bill Brandt, taken in 1937 (fig. A1). The title establishes the particular location of the pit and time of day of the shift the worker has completed, but these are incidental details All the essential information is apparent in, and a host of implications flow from the image, and a textual description of considerable length would be needed to convey so much data.

When considered as a technical exercise…


Second – 3rd May

Bill Brandt
Bill Brandt Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937
© the estate of Bill Brandt

There are numerous published approaches to analysing photographs: Barrett’s (2000) suggestion of six categories provides a useful starting point and Shore (2007) and Szarkowski (1978 and 2007) have both contributed to the genre. Part 4 of Context and Narrative concentrates on the work of Barthes and other exponents of semiotics such a Derrida.

Any analytical method should consider five main aspects of a photograph’s trajectory from camera to publication: the subject, the photographer’s technical choices and personal attitudes, the display environment and the viewer’s circumstances.

Asg4 opens with the phrase ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and (without any further reference to it) asks for an essay on a single picture, deploying ‘rigorous and critical analysis’ (Boothroyd, 2017, p.92).

Alex Salmond in 2007 with Nicola Sturgeon, then his deputy and now party leader
© David Moir/Reuters

The headline phrase merits some consideration. It appears to be relatively recent: although Marlowe mentioned ‘1000 words’ in around 1600 [ref] and Ibsen at the end of 19th century [ref], this rate of exchange for words and pictures was first stated at the beginning of 20th century in several speeches and advertisements in the US [ref]. It has come to mean that a single image might be able to represent what it would otherwise take many words to explain. This is demonstrably the case in some situations such as instructions for self-assembly furniture, but it is also true that images can replace or reinforce or can undermine or even negate any number of spoken and written words. A recent example, noted at the time with this essay in mind is the case of Alex Salmond, who in March this year was ‘cleared of sexual assault allegations made by nine women after a trial at Edinburgh High Court’ (Hutcheon, 2020), but, despite the court’s decision, is widely regarded and frequently depicted as failing to respect colleagues’ rights, and his taking advantage of his position of authority, as in fig. B1, a thirteen-year-old photograph used in The Times when reporting the trial (Massie, 2020).

Falling Man
September 11, 2001

© Richard Drew (AP)

Some images need an explanation before they can be fully appreciated and understood, a notable example being Richard Drew’s Falling Man (fig. C1) which at first might appear to be an abstract, then the body is noticed and the photograph becomes sinister, but when the title subtly reveals, by means of the date, that this was one of nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attack, the full horror of this man’s predicament and choices becomes apparent.

By contrast, other images need no words for a meaning to be resolved in a viewer’s mind (or, at least so far as this particular viewer is concerned) and one such is the subject of this essay, Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal by Bill Brandt, taken in 1937 (fig. A1). The title establishes the particular location of the pit and time of day of the shift the worker has completed, but these are incidental details All the essential information is apparent in, and a host of implications flow from the image, and a textual description of considerable length would be needed to convey so much data.

Brand looks like a window but, when we have more information about his life style and choices, perhaps they are as much (or more) mirror.


Technical Interlude

After quite a long introduction (>500 words), I have barely mentioned the ostensible subject of the essay and failed to introduce any of the technical terms that are its purpose.

It is time to make a note of those technical terms: I will be guided by Salkeld’s Reading Photographs, as I find that more helpful than the cmat.

Barthes is summarised in Part 4 Page 2.
It will be necessary to mention the objective aspects – signifier, denoted and studium
and their subjective counterparts, signified, connoted and punctum
and intertextuality.

[9May] Salkeld has been summarised and I need to get some clarity on studium and punctum. Let’s turn to Stephen Bull’s Photography (2010, pp.57-59): he describes it as Barthes’ ‘highly personal interpretation’ (p.57).
Bull notes that studium is ‘rather briefly defined’ in Barthes’ Camera Lucida and drawing on a 2007 essay by David Bate, defines it as ‘ the general experience that a viewer will derive from a photograph’. Using the example of a starving child in a war zone, the general reaction would be pity, outrage and an inclination to help.
Punctum is “an aspect of the image that affects them in a particular and personal way’ and unlikely to be that intended by he photographer.
In summing up, Bull cites Welch and Long (2009), “studium is ‘what everyone sees’, while a punctum is ‘what only I can feel'”.


I have also been giving some thought to a shortening of the intro.

The assignment brief opens with the phrase ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and (without any further reference to it) asks for an essay on a single picture, deploying ‘rigorous and critical analysis’ (Boothroyd, 2017, p.92). Marlowe mentions ‘1000 ships’ in 1604 (Ratcliffe, 2016) but the headline phrase appears to be relatively recent, being first used beginning of 20th century in several speeches and advertisements in the US (Martin, 2020).

It has come to mean that a single image might represent what would otherwise take many words to explain, as is the case with instructions for self-assembly furniture, but it is also true that images can replace or reinforce or can undermine or even negate any number of spoken and written words. A recent example is the case of Alex Salmond, who in March this year was ‘cleared of sexual assault allegations made by nine women after a trial at Edinburgh High Court’ (Hutcheon, 2020), but, nevertheless, is widely regarded and frequently depicted as failing to respect colleagues’ rights, and taking advantage of his position of authority, as in fig. B1, a thirteen-year-old photograph used in The Times when reporting the trial (Massie, 2020).
[195 words, down from 322, but I need to add the ‘Any analytical method should consider’ component somewhere and then talk about Falling Man]

Regarding intertextuality, Bull (pp.139-140) notes Barthes (writing originally about the written word, but the principle extended to photography) suggestion that ‘meaning does not lie with (the work’s) creator’, but rather derives from ‘the cultural context in which it is created’ and on ‘its interpretation by the viewer’.

And don’t forget image and text and anchoring from Part 1.


Brandt

[11May] The time has come to touch upon the subject and its creator.

I have two books on Brandt (Delany, 2004 and Brandt et al, 1985) and two essays (in Marion, 2015 and Hacking, 2015). In January, with this essay in mind, I visited the V&A library (a wise decision in the current virus-bound circumstances) and examined their Brandt book collection (Brandt, 1936; MoMA, 2003; Jeffrey, 2007; [and 2 others when the net is working]).
None of them make specific mention of the particular photograph under consideration, though a few make a brief mention of his photographing in ‘The North’ in that period: several have relevant and interesting comments on Brandt’s approach and attitude to documenting lives and life styles.

MoMa (2003) p.19

In 1937, Brandt ventured to the industrial towns of Northern England, an area that had been severely impacted by the Depression. He left no record of what motivated him to travel there, nor does he appear to have been on assignment. At first glance, the images that resulted from his trip can be taken as an investigation of the deep poverty and dire conditions that had attracted the attention of a number of social reformers, and indeed, Brandt made a few great pictures that bear unequivocal witness to the devastating unemployment that plagued the region at the time (see pp. 74–75). But there is a subtle ambiguity to many of his images as well: the social implications inherent in the blackened structures of the industrial landscape or even the photographs of the domestic lives of the miners (both of which find parallels with the pictures he was making in London during the same period) are balanced against or even eclipsed by an obvious aesthetic intent. It would be unfair to suggest that Brandt was indifferent to the circumstances before his camera, and yet in the face of such a major social issue, the recurring visual leitmotifs (soot-covered surfaces of both buildings and people) and the private existence of these pictures (unpublished for more than a decade) suggest that he found it difficult to resist the artistic potential he sensed in these subjects.

MoMA, 2013, p.19

MoMA


Hacking (2012)

some of the photographs taken by Brandt for his first book, The English at Home (1936) feature Rolf, Eva [Brandt’s brother and his wife], Ester [Brandt’s wife] and other émigré family and friends posing as characters in purportedly unmediated scenes of British social life.

Hacking p.61
Coal-Searcher Going Home
to Jarrow,
 1937, Brandt

on Coal-Searcher Going Home to Jarrow, 1937, the quote citing Warburton (1999) p.6

Despite creating such searing photographs as Coal-Searcher Going Home to Jarrow, (1937), which shows a man bent almost double as he pushes along a bicycle weighed down by a bag of scavenged coal, Brandt was keen to deny having a social or political agenda. ‘I was probably spired to take these pictures’, he later said, ‘because the social contrast of the thirties was visually very exciting for me. I never intended them, as has sometimes been suggested, for political propaganda.’

Hacking p.61

Part of the quote (emboldened), rearranged and sans citation, “Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dared… photography has no rules. It is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved” heads the essay.

When Brandt claimed photography had no rules, he meant that the photographer was entitled to use any means available to them in order to embody their vision … he made it clear that, by temperament, he was an artist, not a reporter.

Hacking p.64

Delany (2004)

The most detailed analysis to hand

page 10

To place Brandt in these various settings is to follow his own practice in taking portraits, from the early 1940s until he died in 1983. His constant rule was that the subjects needed to have a backdrop that conveyed essential qualities of their personality. The bare image of a face was never enough for Brandt; his subjects had to be ‘in character’, placed on a stage with te necessary props. He believed that people were defined by the surroundings that they had chosen for themselves. Ofter, though, the settings turn into a kind of prison, with the person in them looking like a suspect under interrogation (or already under sentence). Many portraits recall scenes from the German Expressionist films of Brandt’s youth, with their sinister lighting and oppressive furniture

Delany, 2004, p.10

page 104

In his introduction to The English at Home, Raymond Mortimer notes the anthropological quality of Brandt’s pictures, ‘[he] seems to have wandered about England with the detached curiosity of a man investigating the customs of some remote and unfamiliar tribe. And his illustrated report brigs home very amusingly the variety and importance in England of clothes’

Delany, 2004, p.104

page 134

When he moved on from Sheffield to the mining country and to pictures of adults, Brandt was still preoccupied with dirt. ‘Northumbrian miner at his evening meal’ has been criticised for showing a miner eating before having washed, while his wife looks on glumly. Orwell said that ‘a majority of miners prefer to eat their meal first and wash afterwards, as I should do in their circumstances’. Even so, Brandt certainly chose to emphasise the dirtiness of life in the North. The problem with seeing these pictures as social criticism is that none of Brandt’s subjects seem to mind being dirty, and there is no positive representation of workers as the vanguard of a new society.

Delany, 2004, p.134

The Orwell quote is cited as The Road to Wigan Pier, pp.36-7


Brandt et al 1985 – nothing


Salkeld
Barthes terms a photograph’s ‘capacity for generating multiple meanings’ (p.56) as polysemy.


18May20

The denoted contents of Brandt’s photograph comprise an unwashed middle-aged man eating a meal at a table, watched by a woman of similar age who is not eating. The room decoration is not contemporary. The image’s title, Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937, establishes the period, the event and the setting and is an example of the clarification a title can provide, that Barthes (1967) terms ‘anchoring’.

Superficially, this might be considered a documentary image, a genre that Brandt ostensibly built his reputation on in the books The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938), following which he gradually became a regular contributor to British magazines such as Picture Post. While little documentation has been found on this particular image or more generally about his visits to the North of England in the late 1930s, Brandt’s manipulative and sometimes performative approach to seemingly documentary images is frequently described.

Coal-Searcher Going Home
to Jarrow,
 1937, Brandt

Hacking (2012, p.61) writes that ‘some of the photographs taken by Brandt for his first book … feature Rolf, Eva [Brandt’s brother and his wife], Ester [Brandt’s wife] and other émigré family and friends posing as characters in purportedly unmediated scenes of British social life’ and Delany (2004, p.10) that ‘his subjects had to be ‘in character’, placed on a stage with the necessary props’.

It has not been suggested that the Northumbrian coal miner or the coal-searcher were portrayed by actors, but that Brandt might have taken a directorial approach to the portrait subjects’ settings.

Turning to the connoted aspects of Northumbrian coal miner, these are by definition subjective and personal to the viewer so the context to be taken into account here is that I grew up near the South Wales coalfields and the site of the 1966 Aberfan disaster (I was 12 at that time) and have strong memories of the 1984-5 miners’ strike (coincidentally, I worked for several years in the Cardiff bank subsidiary which administered (or mishandled) the trust fund for Aberfan victims and was forced to pay face-saving compensation). Perhaps the most striking component (the punctum of the image in Barthes’ terms, defined by Bate (2007) as the ‘aspect of the image that affects them in a particular and personal way’) is the dirt on the subject’s face, body and clothing which, we suspect from the title to be coal dust: it seems strange to eat a meal without washing, especially when so dirty, but then pit-head baths were only introduced widely, starting in the 1930s (Wright and Herrera, 2017) and Orwell wrote that ‘a majority of miners prefer to eat their meal first and wash afterwards, as I should do in their circumstances’ (Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, quoted in Delany, p. 134). Given my experience and political inclinations, I interpret the image as an illustration of the oppressive conditions imposed on the working class in post-Depression Britain, but Brandt, perhaps partly as a result of his privileged background, seems to have lacked social concerns in this context and ‘never intended them … for political propaganda’ (Brand, quoted in Hacking, p.61) and did not, in any case, publish the images for more than a decade (MoMA, 2003, p.19).

There are other features of the photograph that merit a mention: the fact that the female subject is not eating; what appears to be a satchel hanging on the rear wall; and the picture on that wall, partially obscured but showing a face, seemingly peering around the drying clothes. It is possible, even inevitable that the viewer will try to interpret such features in their own way, but given Brandt’s practice of arranging the scenery and choreographing the subjects, no sensible conclusion can be reached on their implications. This is a manifestation of polysemy, a Barthian concept that Salkeld (2018, p.56) defines as a photograph’s ‘capacity for generating multiple meanings’.


Assessment criteria & Reflection

These are covered in the zine.


References

Barrett, T. (2000) Criticising photographs, an introduction to understanding images. 3rd ed. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing

Barthes, R. (1967) Rhetoric of the Image. In: Wells, L. (ed.), The photography reader. London: Routledge, pp.114-125.

Bate, D. (2007). The emperor’s new clothes. In: J. Elkins (ed.), Photography theory, London: Routledge, pp.253-255.

Boothroyd, S (2017) Context and narrative. Barnsley: Open College of the Arts.

Brandt, B (1936) The English at Home. London: Scribners

Brandt, B., Haworth-Booth, M., Mellor, D., Mellor, D. and Philadelphia Museum of Art (1985) Bill Brandt : behind the camera : photographs 1928-1983. Oxford: Phaidon.

Bull, S. (2010) Photography. Abingdon,Oxon: Routledge.

Delaney, P (2004) Bill Brandt, a life. London: Jonathan Cape.

Hacking, J (2012) Lives of the great photographers. London: Thames & Hudson.

Hutcheon, P. (2020) Female witness in Alex Salmond trial says complainants fear for their safety [online]. dailyrecord.co.uk. Available from https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/female-witness-alex-salmond-trial-21791879 [Accessed 30 April 2020].

Jeffrey, I. (2007) Bill Brandt. London: Thames & Hudson (Photofile).

Marien, M.W. (2015) Photography Visionaries. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Martin, G. (2020) The meaning and origin of the expression: A picture is worth a thousand words [online]. phrases.org.uk. Available from https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words.html [Accessed 9 May 2020].

Massie, A. (2020) Cleared but tainted, ‘El Presidente’ Alex Salmond turns guns on SNP enemies [online]. thetimes.co.uk. Available from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cleared-but-tainted-el-presidente-alex-salmond-turns-guns-on-snp-enemies-plgk7mshc [Accessed 30 April 2020].

MoMA (2003) Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light. New York: MoMA.

Ratcliffe, S. (2016) Oxford essential quotations: Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (1604) act 5, sc. 1 [online]. oxfordreference.com. Available from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00007094 [Accessed 9 May 2020].

Salkeld, R. (2018) Reading Photographs. London: Bloomsbury.

Shore, S. (2007) The nature of photographs. 2nd ed. London: Phaidon Press.

Szarkowski, J. (1978) Mirrors and Windows. New York: MoMA.

Szarkowski, J. (2007) The photographer’s eye. Revised 3rd ed. New York: MoMA.

Welch, E & Long, J. (2009). Introduction: a small history of photography studies. In: J. Long., A. Noble & E. Welch (eds), Photography: theoretical snapshots, London: Routledge, pp.1-15.

Wright, M. and Herrera, D. (2017) The Pithead Baths of Great Britain [online]. modernisttourists.com. Available from https://modernisttourists.com/2017/01/01/the-pithead-baths-of-great-britain/ [Accessed 18 May 2020].

Third Draft

101 to be lost

Bill Brandt
Box A
Bill Brandt Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937
© the estate of Bill Brandt

The assignment brief opens with the phrase ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and (without any further reference to it) asks for an essay on a single picture, deploying ‘rigorous and critical analysis’ (Boothroyd, 2017, p.92).

There are numerous published approaches to analysing photographs. Combining Barrett’s (2000), Shore (2007) and Szarkowski (1978 and 2007) with Barthes and Derrida, any analytical method should consider up to five main aspects of a photograph’s trajectory from camera to publication and consumption: the subject, the photographer’s technical choices and personal attitudes, the display environment and the viewer’s circumstances.

Alex Salmond in 2007 with Nicola Sturgeon, then his deputy and now party leader
DAVID MOIR/REUTERS

The headline phrase appears to be relatively recent, being first used at the beginning of 20th century in several speeches and advertisements in the US (Martin, 2020). It has come to mean that a single image might represent what would otherwise take many words to explain, as with instructions for self-assembly furniture, but it is also apparent that images can replace or reinforce or can undermine or even negate any number of spoken and written words. For example, in March, Alex Salmond was ‘cleared of sexual assault allegations made by nine women after a trial at Edinburgh High Court’ (Hutcheon, 2020), but, nevertheless, is widely regarded and frequently depicted as failing to respect colleagues’ rights, and taking advantage of his position of authority. The Times used a thirteen-year-old photograph (fig. B1) when reporting the trial (Massie, 2020).

Here, the denoted contents are a man trying to embrace a reluctant woman, the press photographers in the background suggest that there is celebrity or public interest involved. A politically informed reader might not need the anchoring text (Barthes, 1967) identifying the subjects. The display environment (Barthes’ channel of transmission) is significant in this case: a national newspaper is using the image to undermine Salmond’s position and diminish his court victory.

361 266 words


Falling Man
September 11, 2001

© Richard Drew (AP)

Some images need an explanation before they can be appreciated and understood, a notable example being Richard Drew’s Falling Man (fig. C1) which at first might appear to be an abstract, then the body is noticed and the photograph becomes sinister, but when the title subtly reveals, by means of the date, that this was one of nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attack, the full horror of this man’s predicament and choices becomes apparent. The significant analytical aspect here is the viewer whose reaction to the context (when the subject is revealed) far outweighs any aesthetic or technical considerations. Those reactions would probably fall into one of several broad categories depending on the viewers political (and perhaps religious) views, but nevertheless constitute what Barthes referred to as punctum, defined by Bate (2007) as the ‘aspect of the image that affects them in a particular and personal way’).

The image chosen as the central subject of this essay is more complex and nuanced than the examples considered so far.

148 words


In Brandt’s Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937 (fig. A1), the denoted contents comprise an unwashed middle-aged man eating a meal at a table, watched by a woman of similar age who is not eating. The room decoration is not contemporary. The image’s title establishes the period, the event and the setting and is another example of the clarification a title can provide, Barthes ‘anchoring’.

Superficially, this might be considered a documentary image, a genre that Brandt ostensibly built his reputation on in the books The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938), following which he gradually became a regular contributor to British magazines such as Picture Post. While little documentation has been found on this particular image or more generally about his visits to the North of England in the late 1930s, Brandt’s manipulative and sometimes performative approach to seemingly documentary images is frequently described.

Hacking (2012, p.61) writes that ‘some of the photographs taken by Brandt for his first book … feature Rolf, Eva [Brandt’s brother and his wife], Ester [Brandt’s wife] and other émigré family and friends posing as characters in purportedly unmediated scenes of British social life’ and Delany (2004, p.10) that ‘his subjects had to be ‘in character’, placed on a stage with the necessary props’.

Coal-Searcher Going Home
to Jarrow,
 1937, Brandt

It has not been suggested that the Northumbrian coal miner or the coal-searcher (fig. D1) were portrayed by actors, but rather that Brandt might have taken a directorial approach to the portrait subjects and settings.

Turning to the connoted aspects of Northumbrian coal miner, these are by definition subjective and personal to the viewer. Perhaps the most striking component (the punctum of the image in Barthes’ terms) is the dirt on the subject’s face, body and clothing which, we suspect from the title to be coal dust: it seems strange to eat a meal without washing, however, pit-head baths were only introduced widely, starting in the 1930s (Wright and Herrera, 2017) and Orwell wrote that ‘a majority of miners prefer to eat their meal first and wash afterwards’ (Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, quoted in Delany, p. 134). Given my experience and political inclinations (I grew up near the South Wales coalfields and the site of the 1966 Aberfan disaster and tend to side with workers rather than employers), I interpret the image as an illustration of the oppressive conditions imposed on the working class in post-Depression Britain, but Brandt, perhaps partly as a result of his privileged background, seems to have lacked social concerns in this context and ‘never intended them … for political propaganda’ (Brand, quoted in Hacking, p.61) and did not, in any case, publish the images for more than a decade (MoMA, 2003, p.19).

There are other features of the photograph that merit a mention: the fact that the female subject is not eating; what appears to be a satchel hanging on the rear wall; and the picture on that wall, partially obscured but showing a face, seemingly peering around the drying clothes. It is possible, even inevitable that the viewer will try to interpret such features in their own way, but given Brandt’s practice of arranging the scenery and choreographing the subjects, no sensible conclusion can be reached on their implications. This is a manifestation of polysemy, a Barthian concept that Salkeld (2018, p.56) defines as a photograph’s ‘capacity for generating multiple meanings’.

I had naively accepted Brandt’s early British work as representational and was disappointed to learn in research for this essay that many images were staged. While this might undermine Brandt’s perceived integrity as a photographer, my respect for the aesthetic quality of his work, especially the later portraits and nudes remains intact. However manipulated Northumbrian miner … was in the details, it is still a notable example of the portrayal of workers’ conditions at that time. Ultimately, I have always supposed that many photographers manipulate their subjects, for example, I cannot see how some of Cartier-Bresson (fig. E1) and Ronis’ (fig. E2) work can be anything other than contrived. This being the case, it is entirely reasonable for Brandt to have done so.

266 + 148 + 687 = 1,101

Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1952
1. Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1952, Henri Cartier-Bresson
2. Le Petit Parisien, 1952, Willy Ronis
the artists, their agents or their estates

Second Draft

273 to be lost

Bill Brandt
Box A
Bill Brandt Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937
© the estate of Bill Brandt

The assignment brief opens with the phrase ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and (without any further reference to it) asks for an essay on a single picture, deploying ‘rigorous and critical analysis’ (Boothroyd, 2017, p.92).

There are numerous published approaches to analysing photographs. Combining Barrett’s (2000), Shore (2007) and Szarkowski (1978 and 2007) with Barthes and Derrida, any analytical method should consider up to five main aspects of a photograph’s trajectory from camera to publication and consumption: the subject, the photographer’s technical choices and personal attitudes, the display environment and the viewer’s circumstances.

Alex Salmond

The headline phrase appears to be relatively recent, being first used at the beginning of 20th century in several speeches and advertisements in the US (Martin, 2020). It has come to mean that a single image might represent what would otherwise take many words to explain, as with instructions for self-assembly furniture, but it is also apparent that images can replace or reinforce or can undermine or even negate any number of spoken and written words. For example, in March, Alex Salmond was ‘cleared of sexual assault allegations made by nine women after a trial at Edinburgh High Court’ (Hutcheon, 2020), but, nevertheless, is widely regarded and frequently depicted as failing to respect colleagues’ rights, and taking advantage of his position of authority. The Times used a thirteen-year-old photograph (fig. B1) when reporting the trial (Massie, 2020).

Here, the denoted contents are a man trying to embrace a reluctant woman, the press photographers in the background suggest that there is celebrity or public interest involved. A politically informed reader might not need the anchoring text (Barthes, 1967) identifying the subjects. The display environment (Barthes’ channel of transmission) is significant in this case: a national newspaper is using the image to undermine Salmond’s position and diminish his court victory.

361 266 words


Falling Man

Some images need an explanation before they can be appreciated and understood, a notable example being Richard Drew’s Falling Man (fig. C1) which at first might appear to be an abstract, then the body is noticed and the photograph becomes sinister, but when the title subtly reveals, by means of the date, that this was one of nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attack, the full horror of this man’s predicament and choices becomes apparent. The significant analytical aspect here is the viewer whose reaction to the context (when the subject is revealed) far outweighs any aesthetic or technical considerations. Those reactions would probably fall into one of several broad categories depending on the viewers political (and perhaps religious) views, but nevertheless constitute what Barthes referred to as punctum, defined by Bate (2007) as the ‘aspect of the image that affects them in a particular and personal way’).

The image chosen as the central subject of this essay is more complex and nuanced than the examples considered so far.

148 words


In Brandt’s Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937 (fig. A1), the denoted contents comprise an unwashed middle-aged man eating a meal at a table, watched by a woman of similar age who is not eating. The room decoration is not contemporary. The image’s title establishes the period, the event and the setting and is another example of the clarification a title can provide, Barthes ‘anchoring’.

Superficially, this might be considered a documentary image, a genre that Brandt ostensibly built his reputation on in the books The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938), following which he gradually became a regular contributor to British magazines such as Picture Post. While little documentation has been found on this particular image or more generally about his visits to the North of England in the late 1930s, Brandt’s manipulative and sometimes performative approach to seemingly documentary images is frequently described.

Coal-Searcher Going Home to Jarrow

Hacking (2012, p.61) writes that ‘some of the photographs taken by Brandt for his first book … feature Rolf, Eva [Brandt’s brother and his wife], Ester [Brandt’s wife] and other émigré family and friends posing as characters in purportedly unmediated scenes of British social life’ and Delany (2004, p.10) that ‘his subjects had to be ‘in character’, placed on a stage with the necessary props’.

It has not been suggested that the Northumbrian coal miner or the coal-searcher (fig. D1) were portrayed by actors, but rather that Brandt might have taken a directorial approach to the portrait subjects and settings.

Turning to the connoted aspects of Northumbrian coal miner, these are by definition subjective and personal to the viewer. Perhaps the most striking component (the punctum of the image in Barthes’ terms) is the dirt on the subject’s face, body and clothing which, we suspect from the title to be coal dust: it seems strange to eat a meal without washing, however, pit-head baths were only introduced widely, starting in the 1930s (Wright and Herrera, 2017) and Orwell wrote that ‘a majority of miners prefer to eat their meal first and wash afterwards’ (Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, quoted in Delany, p. 134). Given my experience and political inclinations (I grew up near the South Wales coalfields and the site of the 1966 Aberfan disaster and tend to side with workers rather than employers), I interpret the image as an illustration of the oppressive conditions imposed on the working class in post-Depression Britain, but Brandt, perhaps partly as a result of his privileged background, seems to have lacked social concerns in this context and ‘never intended them … for political propaganda’ (Brand, quoted in Hacking, p.61) and did not, in any case, publish the images for more than a decade (MoMA, 2003, p.19).

There are other features of the photograph that merit a mention: the fact that the female subject is not eating; what appears to be a satchel hanging on the rear wall; and the picture on that wall, partially obscured but showing a face, seemingly peering around the drying clothes. It is possible, even inevitable that the viewer will try to interpret such features in their own way, but given Brandt’s practice of arranging the scenery and choreographing the subjects, no sensible conclusion can be reached on their implications. This is a manifestation of polysemy, a Barthian concept that Salkeld (2018, p.56) defines as a photograph’s ‘capacity for generating multiple meanings’.

I had naively accepted Brandt’s early British work as representational and was disappointed to learn in research for this essay that many images were staged. While this might undermine Brandt’s perceived integrity as a photographer, my respect for the aesthetic quality of his work, especially the later portraits and nudes remains intact. However manipulated this image was in the details, it is still a notable example of the portrayal of workers’ conditions at that time. Ultimately, I have always supposed that many photographers manipulate their subjects, for example, I cannot see how some of Cartier-Bresson (fig. E1) and Ronis’ (fig. E2) work can be anything other than contrived. This being the case, it is entirely reasonable for Brandt to have done so.

Cartier-Bresson and Ronis

764 687 words

[1,273 total words]
266 + 148 + 687 = 1,101


First Draft

Bill Brandt
Box A
Bill Brandt Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937
© the estate of Bill Brandt

The assignment brief opens with the phrase ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and (without any further reference to it) asks for an essay on a single picture, deploying ‘rigorous and critical analysis’ (Boothroyd, 2017, p.92).

There are numerous published approaches to analysing photographs: Barrett’s (2000) suggestion of six categories provides a useful starting point and Shore (2007) and Szarkowski (1978 and 2007) have both contributed on the matter. Part 4 of Context and Narrative concentrates on the work of Barthes and other exponents of semiotics such a Derrida. Combining these, any analytical method should consider up to five main aspects of a photograph’s trajectory from camera to publication and consumption: the subject, the photographer’s technical choices and personal attitudes, the display environment and the viewer’s circumstances.

Regarding the headline phrase, Marlowe mentions ‘1000 ships’ in 1604 (Ratcliffe, 2016) but this appears to be relatively recent, being first used at the beginning of 20th century in several speeches and advertisements in the US (Martin, 2020).
Alex Salmond

It has come to mean that a single image might represent what would otherwise take many words to explain, as is the case with instructions for self-assembly furniture, but it is also apparent that images can replace or reinforce or can undermine or even negate any number of spoken and written words. A recent example is the case of Alex Salmond, who in March this year was ‘cleared of sexual assault allegations made by nine women after a trial at Edinburgh High Court’ (Hutcheon, 2020), but, nevertheless, is widely regarded and frequently depicted as failing to respect colleagues’ rights, and taking advantage of his position of authority, as in fig. B1, a thirteen-year-old photograph used in The Times when reporting the trial (Massie, 2020).

Here, the denoted contents are a man trying to embrace a reluctant woman, the press photographers in the background suggest that there is celebrity or public interest involved. A politically informed reader might not need the anchoring text (Barthes, 1967) identifying the subjects. The display environment (Barthes’ channel of transmission) is significant in this case: a national newspaper is using the image to undermine Salmond’s position and diminish his court victory.
Falling Man

Some images need an explanation before they can be appreciated and understood, a notable example being Richard Drew’s Falling Man (fig. C1) which at first might appear to be an abstract, then the body is noticed and the photograph becomes sinister, but when the title subtly reveals, by means of the date, that this was one of nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 attack, the full horror of this man’s predicament and choices becomes apparent. The significant analytical aspect here is the viewer whose reaction to the context (when the subject is revealed) far outweighs any aesthetic or technical considerations. Those reactions would probably fall into one of several broad categories depending on the viewers political (and perhaps religious) views, but nevertheless constitute what Barthes referred to as punctum, defined by Bate (2007) as the ‘aspect of the image that affects them in a particular and personal way’).

The image chosen as the central subject of this essay is more complex and nuanced than the examples considered so far.

In Brandt’s Northumbrian coal miner eating his evening meal, 1937 (fig. A1), the denoted contents comprise an unwashed middle-aged man eating a meal at a table, watched by a woman of similar age who is not eating. The room decoration is not contemporary. The image’s title establishes the period, the event and the setting and is another example of the clarification a title can provide, Barthes ‘anchoring’.

Superficially, this might be considered a documentary image, a genre that Brandt ostensibly built his reputation on in the books The English at Home (1936) and A Night in London (1938), following which he gradually became a regular contributor to British magazines such as Picture Post. While little documentation has been found on this particular image or more generally about his visits to the North of England in the late 1930s, Brandt’s manipulative and sometimes performative approach to seemingly documentary images is frequently described.
Coal-Searcher Going Home to Jarrow

Hacking (2012, p.61) writes that ‘some of the photographs taken by Brandt for his first book … feature Rolf, Eva [Brandt’s brother and his wife], Ester [Brandt’s wife] and other émigré family and friends posing as characters in purportedly unmediated scenes of British social life’ and Delany (2004, p.10) that ‘his subjects had to be ‘in character’, placed on a stage with the necessary props’.

It has not been suggested that the Northumbrian coal miner or the coal-searcher (fig. D1) were portrayed by actors, but rather that Brandt might have taken a directorial approach to the portrait subjects and settings.

Turning to the connoted aspects of Northumbrian coal miner, these are by definition subjective and personal to the viewer so the context to be taken into account here is that I grew up near the South Wales coalfields and the site of the 1966 Aberfan disaster (I was 12 at that time) and have strong memories of the 1984-5 miners’ strike (coincidentally, I worked for several years in the Cardiff bank subsidiary which administered (or mishandled) the trust fund for Aberfan victims and was forced to pay face-saving compensation). Perhaps the most striking component (the punctum of the image in Barthes’ terms) is the dirt on the subject’s face, body and clothing which, we suspect from the title to be coal dust: it seems strange to eat a meal without washing, especially when so dirty, however, pit-head baths were only introduced widely, starting in the 1930s (Wright and Herrera, 2017) and Orwell wrote that ‘a majority of miners prefer to eat their meal first and wash afterwards, as I should do in their circumstances’ (Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, quoted in Delany, p. 134). Given my experience and political inclinations, I interpret the image as an illustration of the oppressive conditions imposed on the working class in post-Depression Britain, but Brandt, perhaps partly as a result of his privileged background, seems to have lacked social concerns in this context and ‘never intended them … for political propaganda’ (Brand, quoted in Hacking, p.61) and did not, in any case, publish the images for more than a decade (MoMA, 2003, p.19).

There are other features of the photograph that merit a mention: the fact that the female subject is not eating; what appears to be a satchel hanging on the rear wall; and the picture on that wall, partially obscured but showing a face, seemingly peering around the drying clothes. It is possible, even inevitable that the viewer will try to interpret such features in their own way, but given Brandt’s practice of arranging the scenery and choreographing the subjects, no sensible conclusion can be reached on their implications. This is a manifestation of polysemy, a Barthian concept that Salkeld (2018, p.56) defines as a photograph’s ‘capacity for generating multiple meanings’.

I had naively accepted Brandt’s early British work as representational and was disappointed to learn in research for this essay that many images were staged. While this might undermine Brandt’s perceived integrity as a photographer, my respect for the aesthetic quality of his work, especially the later portraits and nudes remains intact. However manipulated this image was in the details, it is still a notable example of the portrayal of workers’ conditions at that time. Ultimately, I have always supposed that many photographers manipulate their subjects, for example, I cannot see how some of Cartier-Bresson (fig. E1) and Ronis’ (fig. E2) work can be anything other than contrived. This being the case, it is entirely reasonable for Brandt to have done so.

Cartier-Bresson and Ronis

[1273 words]


References

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Bate, D. (2007). The emperor’s new clothes. In: J. Elkins (ed.), Photography theory, London: Routledge, pp.253-255.

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Martin, G. (2020) The meaning and origin of the expression: A picture is worth a thousand words [online]. phrases.org.uk. Available from https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words.html [Accessed 9 May 2020].

Massie, A. (2020) Cleared but tainted, ‘El Presidente’ Alex Salmond turns guns on SNP enemies [online]. thetimes.co.uk. Available from https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cleared-but-tainted-el-presidente-alex-salmond-turns-guns-on-snp-enemies-plgk7mshc [Accessed 30 April 2020].

MoMA (2003) Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light. New York: MoMA.

Ratcliffe, S. (2016) Oxford essential quotations: Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (1604) act 5, sc. 1 [online]. oxfordreference.com. Available from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00007094 [Accessed 9 May 2020].

Salkeld, R. (2018) Reading Photographs. London: Bloomsbury.

Shore, S. (2007) The nature of photographs. 2nd ed. London: Phaidon Press.

Szarkowski, J. (1978) Mirrors and Windows. New York: MoMA.

Szarkowski, J. (2007) The photographer’s eye. Revised 3rd ed. New York: MoMA.

Welch, E & Long, J. (2009). Introduction: a small history of photography studies. In: J. Long., A. Noble & E. Welch (eds), Photography: theoretical snapshots, London: Routledge, pp.1-15.

Wright, M. and Herrera, D. (2017) The Pithead Baths of Great Britain [online]. modernisttourists.com. Available from https://modernisttourists.com/2017/01/01/the-pithead-baths-of-great-britain/ [Accessed 18 May 2020].