Summary of research for assignment 2 Literature review and dissertation proposal

The breadth of my reading and some of the depth will be seen in my Literature review and dissertation proposal. I have made many notes whilst reading though I don’t intend to publish them here as I wrote them as working documents for myself with page and citation references.

I will give a brief overview of the items that I researched and made notes on for later use and to aid my general understanding.

On semiology

I began with Visual Methodologies (Rose, 2001), which was a revisit of chapter 2 “The Good Eye” (looking at pictures using compositional interpretation), and chapter 4 semiology: laying bare the prejudices beneath the smooth surface of the beautiful. I also read chapter 6 on discourse analysis i: text, intertextuality and context. I haven’t research Foucault which I know is a big area as I’m not convinced it is relevant to my area of enquiry. From here I read ‘Saussure versus Peirce: Models for a semiotics of Visual Art’ (Iverson, 1986) to begin my research on Peirce and them read more widely on Peirce and then continued on to expanding my previous reading of Barthes on semiotics.

Bate (2009) was useful for background and clarity on semiology and other areas of photographic theory and history on the language of photography. I used Chandler (2002) for some clarification on semiotics.

On documentary versus artistic expression in Landscape photography

I began with Benjamin (1931) and Clarkson (2019) recommended by my tutor which were useful on the tension between art and photography. Bull (2010) as well as giving me background on the meaning of photographs also gave good commentary on photography as art. I explored more on Szarkowski on expression on photography, beginning with Mirrors and Windows (1978) which led to more book purchases and have much more material to use.

The area that I read much on but haven’t included in my Literature review were photographers, Minor White and John Blakemore. Bunnell (Cronan, 2014) and Badger (1977) suggested by my tutor were good starting places, and led to more research and material for future use. This I will use in my dissertation to give context to emotional expression and plurality of meaning in photography, equivalence, and metaphor.

I revisited Berger’s texts for background on looking and seeing (Berger, 1980, 1972), personal interpretation and aesthetics for attention, but didn’t include in my work at this stage. Another area of research that I touched on but have left for now is the affect of audience on the meaning of photographs.

The full list of texts that I have read are listed in my literature review and my dissertation proposal.

References:

Badger, G. (1977) ‘Introduction’ In: British Image 3: John Blakemore: Exhibition. London: Arts Council. pp.7–10.

Bate, D. (2009) Photography: The Key Concepts. New York: Berg publishers.

Benjamin, W. (1931) in his Little History of Photography, Die literarische Welt, (Gesammelte Schriften, II), 368–385.

Berger, J. Blomberg, S, Fox, C, Dibb, M, Hollis, R (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.

Berger, J. (1980) USES OF PHOTOGRAPHY. [Email sent to Sontag, S. 1980]. At: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxqbHMxMDZpbnRyb3RvZG9jc3R1ZGllc3xneDo0ZjVlYmEyZjk1YWUyNjdl (Accessed 23/04/2022).

Chandler, D. and Dr, D. C. (2002) Semiotics: The Basics. (London): Routledge.

Clarkson, G. (2019) Documentary evidence and artistic expression. At: https://www.oca.ac.uk/weareoca/education/documentary-evidence-and-artistic-expression/?cn-reloaded=1 (Accessed 04/04/2022).

Cronan, T. (2014) ‘Aperture Magazine Anthology: The Minor White Years, 1952–1976, by Peter C. Bunnell’ In: History of Photography 38 (2) pp.204–206.

Iverson, M. (1986) ‘Saussure versus Peirce: Models for a semiotics of Visual Art’ In: Rees, A.L. and Borzello, F. (eds.) The New Art History. London: Camden Press. pp.82–94.

Rose, G. (2001) ‘Visual Methodologies. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials’ In: PDF At: https://www.miguelangelmartinez.net/IMG/pdf/2001_Rose_Visual_Methodologies_book.pdf (Accessed 17/08/2021).

Szarkowski, J. (1978) Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.

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