The Meaning of Photographs - Professional Studies

One of the challenges and feedback I obtained from the Professional Practice assignment was to be more creative in the meaning of my Photographs. At first this was a little hard to understand as I had always tried to be creative in the use of techniques and choice of camera format. However, this comment was not directed at the style of my photography but more on what message my images where trying to portray to the viewer. I have found this in the past a little difficult always tyring to make my images pleasing to the eye but not containing any real message. Some of the photography of this nature has left me cold, lots of meaning but not something you would want to hang in your hallway or view for very long.

I came across a photograph by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin. At first glance at this image you might be mistaken that, well it's just a good shot of a leaf. The leaf is an interesting shape and colour and has a fine art vibe about it. Many would be happy for this to hang in the hall way. Then, and this a big then, you read why this particular leaf has been taken. A sixteen year old Palestinian boy blew himself up in a market area of Tel Aviv. The force of this explosion stripped the leaf from the tree. This is a common sight, trees around such explosions are stripped of their foliage.

This is a very clever way to provide a message within an image. On its own it is what it is, but with the supporting commentary it elevates the image to a higher plane.

In the 1st Year at Uni we were given a fortnightly challenge to produce an image from a set word. The word was 'Hunger' and we could interpret this anyway we desired.  I produced the following image:

Although I would do things slightly differently if challenged with this assignment now. However, this images was in response to reading how much money is spent on aid to feed the starving ($2.9 Billion). However UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated 17,000 children die each day from starvation. Things to me did not add up. My representation here took three symbolic items, the rusty spade to represent the undeveloped 3rd world, the rice to represent the staple diet of the impoverished and the single American dollar to represent the ineffectiveness of the aid we give.

These images highlighted that you can have meaning in a photograph and make them aesthetically pleasing. This is what I think the challenge set by the lecturing staff meant.