Semiotics Of Photography: M

M is for Moon

Since the beginnings of photography photographers have photographed the moon; photographed at night and by moonlight.

Man on the moon.
Dark side of the moon.
Moonstruck

Blue moon.
(Athens, Georgia, 2002)

Semiotics Of Photography: L

L is for (The Camera Never) Lies

They say the camera never lies, so to whom do we attribute this sleight of hand?

Photographer or subject?

Semiotics Of Photography: K

K is for Klein (Yves Klein's Leap into the Void, 1960)

A leap into the void.

A year later - the year before he died - Klein masterminded another brilliant stunt: Blue Monochrome (1961).

According to the MoMA website (http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80103) 'Klein likened monochrome painting to an 'open window to freedom'. He worked with a chemist to develop his own particular brand of blue. Made from pure color pigment and a binding medium, it is called International Klein Blue. Klein adopted this hue as a means of evoking the immateriality and boundlessness of his own particular utopian vision of the world.'

Blue: the hue of freedom and immateriality. Rebecca Solnit is Klein's true successor with her beautiful philosophical memoir A Field Guide To Getting Lost (2005).

From her chapter, 'The Blue of Distance':

'For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of emotion, the color of solitude and desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. The color of where you can never go. For the blue is not in the place those miles away at the horizon, but in the atmospheric distance between you and the mountains.' (pp29-30)

Semiotics Of Photography: J

J is for Jane

Holding on, however absurd.

Semiotics Of Photography: I

I is for I(Eye)-Balling

If high-balling doesn't suit you, try I(eye)-balling.

Semiotics Of Photography: H

H is for Highballs

Something to consider when there's been a balls-up with the high-up at work.

According to Staffordshire Gritstone - The Roaches: The Definitive Guide (2009) edited by Niall Grimes:

'If a boulder problem occurs with a full grade in brackets opposed to just the technical grade, this means it is a highball problem, with aspects of a route about it. That is, you might not want to fall off. . . Use your sense.' (Grimes, 2009, 12)

Semiotics Of Photography: G

G is for Greg Lucas Connects

The most original and erudite commentary on photography I know. Free-thinking, free-wheeling.

http://greg-lucas.blogspot.co.uk

Semiotics Of Photography: F

F is for Fish (and Photography)

I maintain there remains a place in the multiple, myriad histories of photography for a history of fishing, fish and photography. . .

Image from M Haworth-Booth, 1997, Photography: An Independent Art, London: V&A Publishing, p56. (Royal Engineers US/Canada Border Survey, Columbia River Salmon Caught at Kettle Falls, 1860-1.)

Semiotics Of Photography: E

E is for Education (A Photographic Education)

Image taken from Marina Warner, 'Parlour Made', Creative Camera, Vol 315, April/May 1992 pp28-32
(Kate E Gough Album, V&A Collection)


Originally inspired by an enlightened ideal (art for art's sake), it was latterly hijacked by career aspirants.

Semiotics Of Photography: D

D is for Darkroom

A place for development, transgression, alchemy.

The analogue photographer's final sanctuary.
(Until our Alma Mater, the University, dismantled it.)

Image from (ed) Jay, B (1994) Some Rollicking Bull: Light Verse, and Worse, on Victorian Photography, Germany: Nazraeli Press