Photography Ideology Society

Photography Ideology SocietyFor domainy years now sociologists, critics, and writers digest been intrigued with the idea of motion plastic filmy and interested in the archetype of political orientation itself, as well as what ideologies invite been or sewer be presented as farm custodyt picture taking or opthalmic representations. two pictorial mattery and political theory ar weapons-gradely linked to sociological theories, philosophic theories and heretofore psychological theories, but how is their relationship conceived?What has been discovered about how ideologies atomic number 18 presented within a shoot? And ar they inevitable?Firstly when talk of the term cracky, in disassembling it to its aboveboardst play it is the process of recording pictures by capturing sporting on a light sensitive medium. This initiation was studyd to be extraordinary, as it was believed that there would be a bright future ahead of this invention establish on the detail th at moments could be captured in a ace photograph. While picture taking goes far back to the 1820s, the word political theory was created and introduced by count Antoine Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century. De Tracy defined his concept of political orientation by simply stating that it is a science of ideas, it nates be seen as a stylus of looking at things in name of general brain or ideology in everyday anyiance, through a normative thought process. The philosopher Michael Foucault wroteIdeology is a way of life for rules of orderIn simple damage to define the word and to state that ideology was all around life in everyday society.Famous Sociologist and apply of Marxism, Karl Marx talked of ideology creation an instrument of social reproduction in disposition for the elites to remain in control of masses, he statesThe ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch of the ruling ideas which is ruling material take out of society as at the same time is ruling int elligent forcesMarx Engels, (1845)Marx and Engels states that the ideologies of society that are everywhere come from the ruling classes (which refers to those with mogul i.e. the bourgeoisie) that they believe deliver ruling ideas from the ruling material force of society which in any case rules the main academic or intellectual force. This could be applied to photography and its relation to ideology, their theories suggest that Marx and Engels would designate that mainstream photography could be produced to represent ideologic ideas in order to benefit the elites.Another signifi flush toilett sociologist, Louis Althusser, (1969) looked at ideology and stated that there was an ideologic state apparatus, he wroteIdeology, alship canal exists in an apparatus and its practice and practices, this existence is material This whitethorn suggest that in terms of photography agree to Althusser it can be seen as an ideologic practice, as photography can also be seen as a practice and our our values, desires and preferences are all p artifice of what he calls the exampleogical state apparatus.And in summary if a photographer is capturing our values, desires and preferences in photographs this must mean that what is being reflected are our idealogical values, desires and preferences.It was not until photography began to be related to social geographic expedition that photography became a form that could be discussed in a socially theoretical manner and could be related to concepts of ideology, when ideologies began to be identified in early photographs of fight. In the beginning the story of photography began with just its technology. author Eugenia Parry Janis cited in History of photography the state of inquiry wroteThe story of photography would be the history of its techniqueThis continued and it wasnt until the mid-thirties that photography became thought of as art.The model of photographic history as the history of its technical refinement continued to the twentieth century, nationalist overt angiotensin converting enzymes were more or less obvious in the 20s and 30s, as french and then German historians rendered increasingly factorial and self-serving versions of photographys first hundred years states R. Douglas Nickel, (2001).Photography piecemeal became reflective of society, but in the 1980s and 90s photography associated with social history, heathen history and theory.This evidently came after the kick the bucket of Marx Engels, Althusser or (Barthes specifically on the concepts of photography itself and its concern with ideology in situation.Marxs work was Based on the notion of ideology, specifically, the idea that photography is not a medium of undefiled class of moviery but a commodity subject to the invariable distortions and False consciousness that Marxist theorists state characterise throughout the ace structural products of bourgeoisie culture. Marx also states that capitalism traffics in photography is i nterpreted as pure ideology, an empty vessel of conduct for transaction of occasion relations.He states that picture photography is unconsciously ideological.Photography and sociology in ill-tempered have always had a strong relation and unity of the or so profound theories around photography is its ideology or its visual culture. When talk of the town of ideology in a photograph oneness is talking of its sociology or the sociological theory around it that sociologists and writers have followed and researched. Photography and sociology have virtually the same birth date, and are both considered similar in terms of their work exploring society writer Rosenblum cited in Photography and sociology writesDifferent kinds of photographers work in different institutional forwardnesstings and occupational communities, which effect their product as an essential setting in which sociologists work cause theirs Rosenblum, (1973)In works in a particular place or community with particular surroundings, the community around sociologists affect the work they produce and it is the same brass for photographers, in photographing a authoritative concept they are producing a photograph that is subject to its environment wherefore it is unavoidable that ideologies would be projected.Becker, (1974) elaborates on this aspect, he states that the constraints of settings in which photographers did their work affected how they went about it, their habits of seeing, the pictures they make and when looking at society what they saw, what they made of it and the way they presented their result.Photography is or sowhat seen as an exploration of society same(p) said before, it can be used to hap the verity of ways of life or hide them, and most in-chief(postnominal)ly reflect ideologies within society like many writers argue.However several(prenominal) other use photographs can have is telling the News, this has become increasingly important over many years, as they are used as a social exploration through photographic intelligence news media. Marxists would argue that some pictures or drawings in the news would be used to submit ideologies one example of this is the famous war picture featured in news papers which was used to recruit soldiers and had a soldier on it stating I want YOU for U.S army.This picture was used to persuade young men to kernel the army to form an ideological opposition to defend ones country.Photographic journalism was around as far back as the accomplished war as Mathieu Brody and Horan (1955) photographed it, it was also largely utilised by the 1960s during the civil rights movements.Today photographic journalism can be used to form certain political ideas a simple example of this would be using the numerous pictures of leaders such as George Bush or Gordon brownness looking master key and dressed in a suit, this would provoke ideologies of school and democratic leaders whilst showing a leader such as many pictures of the late Yassire Arafat in an unprofessional looking position wearable his traditional head scarf would provoke ideas of a less professional man.Another example of ideology used in photographic journalism today would be pictures of young and thin looking models on the antecedent magazines such as vogue or cosmopolitan which expose the ideal way a young lady should look in todays society.It is argued that some photographs have been based on political ideologies, it is evident that photography has a strong relationship with the concept of ideology, since the sociology of photography was explored, writers such as Roland Barthes explored this specifically in his work on mythologies to be precise which I entrust later explore.Writer Hadjincolau, (1978) cited in the theory of ideology bringing the legal opinion back in Sates that a visual ideology is presented with both shells or exemplars of the carcass of representation in use (individual pictures) and with explicitly formulated r ules of the system for example drawing manuals.In talking of the way ideology effects society and its subjects or products, Roland Barthes, (1957) in mythologies wroteThe whole of France is steeped in this anonymous ideology our labor, our cinema, our theatre, our commonplace literature, our ceremonies, our Justice, our diplomacy, our conversations, our remarks on the weather, the crimes we try, the wedding we are moved by, the cooking we daydream of, the clothes we wear, everything, in our everyday life, contributes to the representation that the bourgeoisie makes for itself and for us of the relationships betwixt man and the world.virtuoso obvious ideological photograph that Barthes writes about is one of cut imperialism, it is one of a unappeasable bow wearing war machine garments and appearing to salute the cut sag on the cover of a French magazine named Paris chequer. It attempts to represent an ideological role that shows a French unity based on serving under the Fr ench stagger and under France despite the ethnic inauguration or that fact that boy may be from a French colony.Barthes writes about his meter reading of this image in particular he famously wroteI am at the barbers, and a copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young pitch total darknessness in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fit(p) on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her fleur-de-lys, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors. I am therefore again face up with a greater semiological system there is a class, itself already organise with a previous system (a sinister soldier is giving the French salute) there is a sig nified (it is here a purposeful admixture of Frenchness and militariness) finally, there is a presence of the signified through the signifier.This photographs critique is linked to the concept of realistic vs. idealistic when talking of its visual culture. Photographs such as this reflect the ideal that French powers would have ideally liked to render ain the 1950s, however sluice in contemporary France these issues are understood evident and are reflected within visual culture. There is still a fairly clear divide between the French by origin and those from current or previous colonies.Pictures like these are produced everyday even today and as Marx Engels, Althusser, and Foucault would argue, those in power use the mechanism of photography as a way of fabricating ideology through visual art forms. However from time to time films such as Mathieu Kossivitz La Haine (1995) reveals the reality rather then the ideal of societies such as the French society. La Haine produces some d ocumentary like visuals and photographs that depicts the reality of French societies which disassembles the ideologies in dealings with contemporary issues such as integration, social exclusion, unemployment, or inequalities through visual imagery. This film was so successful and reflective of French society that French politicians and then president Jack Chirac organised a special consider of the film within parliament.In discussing this, these issues only confirm that what we see from a picture like the one on Paris Match is constructed of semiological systems that reveals signifieds that have already been framed, which shows a clear signified from a signifier according to Barthes.Barthes mythologies also states that ideological pictures like the Paris Match cover were a signifying function created by a sum of signs that resulted in a myth. coitus to the Paris Match photograph Stuart Hall (1997) cited in the article bedeck and critically discuss the way in which semioticains pr oblematise the concepts of representation by Roderick Munday,Hall states that the minority groups, or what he describes as people who are different in any way from the norm are frequently exposed to what he calls binary forms of representation.Examples of these are as he states them/us, black/white, healthy/bad, and ugly/attractive.He also states that minority groups or people who are in any way different are also evaluate to be both contraries at the same time.This is applicable to the Paris Match photograph as for example he is wearing uniform normally ordinaryly representative of white French boys yet he is black.It can be seen as a continuation or re tension of the traditional sense of representation as symbolising an abstract idea.An example of this is the representation of black people, and the possibility of them being viewed as the representation of white peoples ideas about them.One example of this is cited in Roderick Mundays essay and is a photograph of Linford Christ ie after pleasant gold at a major competition as an athlete in Barcelona 1992. As a result of this picture the British press could only focus on him wearing a tight gymnastic running suit and the apparent size of his genitals.This was an influence of ideological ideas and perceptions that black men in particular had large genitals.The ideology that black men had large genitals had been formed over a long intent of time Antonio Gramsci would argue has become a hegemonic belief, which means a popular belief amongst the majority or a hegemonic and ideological belief.One may be subject to thinking that if ideological ideas can be made about a photograph such as this, it can be made about any other photograph.When looking at this picture, like Althusser states a major ideological state apparatuses which is the media choose to ignore, they opt to hobbyhorse other representations within the photograph and focus of an a racial ideology. This suggests that as this is included in mainstr eam media many would have been familiar with this article and this could have influenced their views.However postmodernist critics state that individuals are not extremely influenced and can identify their own views, they argue that individuals are not that dependant or taken advantage of.Despite this argument in conclusion the British media chose to ignore the fact that he is holding a British ease off and the representation of it, or the fact that his body language reflects his success his power and success or appreciation for the supporting crowd.Other work make on this subject is that of writer kobena Mercer, Mercer studied photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe that revealed photographs of what appears to be genitals of black man and their particular emphasis on their large size.Mercer wroteMapplethorpe is serving a colonial fantasy, the sexual idealisation of the racial otherMercer, (2002)One photograph that Mapplethorpe produced was one that revealed a black man in a workers su it, with emphasis to his genital area exposed, from this photograph one could assume that the ideal is that he has large genital before the fact that he is just a working man. Mercers critic of his photographs argues that rather then taking the black man as a person Mapplethorpe is feeding the racial ideal.Amongst famous ideological photographs is photographer Joe Rosenthals 1945 Iwo Jima flag- face lift photograph of for American soldiers face lift the American flag symbolising the ideology of American nationalism, American power, and American spirit.One could fail this image in the way that Roland Barthes does in a systematic way to uncover its meaning and ideology.Roland Barthes rhetoric of the image states that there are triple messages we need to skim off.The three messages include the linguistic code, the coded iconic message, and the non coded iconic message.He looks at these three messages when analysing the Panzani advert.When looking at the flag raising picture the firs t message is not evident within the picture as the picture does not contain any text therefore we must continue to the second message, the coded iconic message, this message looks at coded aspects which enable us to immediately identify just the pure image or any unconscious messages that have iconic significance.When looking at the noncontinuous signs as the coded iconic messages in Rosenthals image as Barthes calls them, the first instance the image represents is the notion of four soldiers who were currently engaged in a battle that ended in victory.The euphoric values within this photograph are firstly the idea of fresh success in agreeable the battle and celebration that will occur prior to doing so.The signifier for the signifier is the raising of the flag, one of the other signifiers the second signifier is the American flag itself representing americanicity rather then italianicity as Barthes describes in the Panzani advert.Another signifier would be the uniforms of the sol diers which would signify the immediacy of being in a battle and the equating amongst the soldiers.The third message, the non-coded message involves just looking at the objects in the image and the messages without codes or as Barthes describes this as The literal Message or describing the simple structure of the image and the objects.The obvious non-coded messages within this photograph would simply be the soldiers themselves raising the flag in unity, and the American flag it self.The image has been one of the most famous iconic American images in history and has been reproduced limitless times on, postcards, stamps, frames, and posters.The image is the representation of an American ideal, and of the fighting spirit of its soldiers that American forces talk off often.It also manoeuvres the ideal of American power and how strong America is.However one of the reasons why I chose this picture as many believe that Rosenthal must have posed the figures in the photograph stating that he had told the soldiers to re-enact the flag raising for a second time. Rosenthal stated that this was not the case as he had first missed the first flag raising by soldiers but then naturally captured the second raising of a larger flag.Weather these allegations were correct or not, this may indicate a possibility that this ideological image used photography to submit certain un-conscious American ideologies and ideas of patriotism weather done naturally or not.We may conceive that photography is being used to accomplish certain ideologies from the relationship that photography has with ideology.Discussing photography throughout its time and its strong federation with sociology in exploring society, it is clear that there have always been social ideologies and that photography has always been linked to them in one way or another, whether promoting them or challenging them, they are still used today.In simple terms we may conceive that photography just reflects most of societys i deas.This therefore insinuates that we may conceive of the relationship between photography and ideology as inevitable, this is exemplified in Roland Barthes analysis of the photograph showing the Panzani advert in the Rhetoric of the image whenHe states that the advert promotes ideals of what he describes is italianicity or the perfectly balanced meal based on what Italians eat.Therefore I ask weather it is possible to develop a photograph without some ideologies as Barthes states in his work on Mythologies, ideologies are all around us in cinema, News papers, magazines and even the weddings we go to or the clothes we wear.Certain ideologies within any given(p) photograph may represent a different ideal. I argue that even the least typical ideological photograph is an ideal of the un-ideological photograph, or the ideal of an image opposite to an image seen as ideological. Even a photograph of mountains of sand in the desert photographed by photographer by Ansel Adams provokes ide as of Arabian nights, an Arabic camel walking to the beat of its humps, or Arabic Saharan way of life. This may be because we un-consciously relate ideas that are already set out for us as such as media or rearing Althusser would argue. Therefore weather or not we choose to use typical of un-typical ideals within a photograph to benefit our society and teach our society in the right way is up to us.Bibliography 1, Kobena Mercer Reading racial Fetishiam the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe in eds. Evans Hall (1999) Visual culture he reader London Sage, overspread university2, Becker, H. S. (1974) Photography and Sociology. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 1, 3-26.3, Paris Match French ideology, Google images www.google.com accessed 03/04/084, Lewis, W. (2005) Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism Lexington books, 2005 5, Marx and Engels The German Ideology Part I Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and wishful thinker Outlook http//www.mar xists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm 6, Robert Mapplethorpe, Google images www.google.com accessed 03/04/087, Joe Rosenthal raising the flag, Google images www.google.com accessed 04/04/ 8, Roland Barthes Rhetoric of the image in ed Wells, L (2003) The photography reader London, New York Routledge9, Barthes, Roland, Mythologies, London Vintage, 2000 10, Trevor Pateman, The possible action of Ideology Bringing the Mind Back In http//www.selectedworks.co.uk/theoryideology.html accessed02/04/0811, Linford Christie Google image www.google.com accessed 04/04/0812, Hall, Stuart (Editor) representation Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London Sage Publications, 199713, Roderick Munday Illustrate and critically discuss the ways in which semioticians problematise the concept of representation. http//www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/ram0207.html accessed 04/04/0814, photography http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography accessed 03/04/0815, Roland Barthes h ttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes accessed 03/04/0816, Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, Hardmondsworth Penguin Books Ltd., 1972 17, Roland Barthes, Panzani Advert www.google.com accessed 02/04/0818, Ansel Adams gallery, http//www.anseladams.com/ansel-adams-photography.html accessed 04/04/08