Alternative Interpretations
Over the space of a few weeks gather newspapers that you can cut up, preferably including a mixture of different political points of view. Have a look through and cut out some images without their captions. You could choose advertising images or news.
I&P p.95
For each image, write three or four different captions that enable you to bend the image to different and conflicting points of view.
● What does this tell you about the power of text and image combinations?
Now write some text that re-contextualises these images and opens them up to alternative interpretations.
Write some notes in your learning log about this exercise.
● How might you use what you’ve learnt to add a new dimension to your own work?
[16Mar21] My sources here are predominantly The Times and The Guardian, both online. I plan to choose a few suitable images, note the original titles and also find some examples of contrasting illustration of the same subject (Mrs. B recalls doing something similar for a school class in the 1970s but using text rather than imagery.
Here are the images chosen
Figs. 1-15
© the artists, their agents or their estates
And here’s the associated text. I have included the attributions where shown.
E-scooters are coming to a street near you amid surging demand – GEOFF CADDICK/AFP VIA GETTY
The best live arts to stream this week: Jack O’Connell in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – JOHAN PERSSON
Sinclair Hood obituary – Austere archaeologist who ran the British School in Athens and was thought a spy – Hood liked to camp on expeditions instead of staying in more comfortable accommodation
Sex work ban to protect women ignores us, say male prostitutes – Umbrella Lane, a sex worker charity, said the Scottish government’s proposals were sexist and flawed GETTY IMAGES
I 16th March – Floyd cover
Cap on Trident nuclear warhead stockpile to rise by more than 40% – The increased limit, from 180 to 260 warheads, is contained in a leaked copy of the integrated review of defence and foreign policy. Photograph: Tam McDonald/MoD/EPA
The Brexit deal was astonishingly bad, and every day the evidence piles up, Polly Toynbee -Fishing boats moored in the harbour at Scarborough, England, 4 January 2021. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
The Guardian view on policing dissent: Johnson plays politics with protest, Editorial – Priti Patel opens the debate on the second reading of the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill. ‘Ms Patel’s response to demonstrations is to denigrate them’. Photograph: PRU/AFP/Getty Images
Priti Patel: I know the fear of hearing footsteps behind on the street – Home secretary warns against vigils as 78,000 answer survey on male violence
Ministers watering down green pledges post-Brexit, study finds – Greener UK claims analysis shows rhetoric on environment not being matched by action – Ministers have promised to improve air pollution, but have not agreed to sign up to WHO standards. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP via Getty Images
Renewable energy growth must speed up to meet Paris goals, agency says – International Renewable Energy Agency says $131tn investment in renewables could be required over three decades
I predicted to myself while assembling the images that the exercise would become a demonstration of my picture-associations, my punctums, and so it has proved.
Turning into an exercise on how my mind works, photo-associations, Floyd, McCullin, Gursky.
Scooters
The Times
The three notable things about the image are scooters, orange bags and female riders. They do not trigger any significant associations with me but I associate those orange bags with Sainsbury and B&Q. It could be:
Sainsbury trials small-order deliveries to pensioners
Sainsbury shoplifters escape on scooters
Eco-conscious escooter users still using too many plastic bags.
The real headline is E-scooters are coming to a street near you amid surging demand
and the image credit is GEOFF CADDICK/AFP VIA GETTY
Cows
Pink Floyd’s
Atom Heart Mother, 1970
The i
I predicted to myself while assembling the images that the exercise would become a demonstration of my picture-associations, my punctums, and so it has proved.
I cannot see a white and brown/black cow without thinking of Pink Floyd’s 1970 album, Atom Heart Mother and then my attention tends to drift.
The other association is with stories that used to crop up a few years ago about the effect of barnyard animals’ methane emissions doing more harm to the ozone layer than [insert your eco-prejudice here].
I cannot get past the methane story, but at a stretch it could illustrate camping holidays in the UK – oh dear, now I’m on to Carry On films.
Farm emissions must be considered in zero-carbon strategy, Greenpeace lobbies ministers for Glasgow COP26.
Farm Glamping risks cryptosporidium poisoning
The real headline was Gene editing set to end for UK farms.
There was no image credit on the front page.
The album cover was by Storm Thorgerson / Hipgnosis, see https://ultimateclassicrock.com/pink-floyd-album-covers/
Solar panels
The Guardian
The Guardian
When I first saw this I thought it was window cleaners on a high-rise and I strayed to Gursky’s Paris, Montparnasse, 1993 an image which, when I first saw in in Tate Modern nearly 30 years ago rekindled my interest in ‘serious’ photography (we will attend to what that might mean some other time).
I think I had to check the actual headline to understand the subject.
It is difficult to conceive a relevant headline that does not mention solar panels and so I am regretting choosing this, however,
Drone photographs found to induce vertigo and nausea
Cost-effectiveness of solar panel farms in Wales called into question
The original title is Renewable energy growth must speed up to meet Paris goals, agency says. Credit: Anadolu / Getty
Submarine
The Guardian
Show me a submarine and I’ll think of Dunoon, Scotland. I travelled there with my father to his union conference when I was a boy, some time in the 1960s. It was the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers then, later UCATT after a series of amalgamations. The hotel (or B&B) overlooked the entrance to Holy Loch and nuclear submarines were to be seen coming and going.
I associate submarines with missiles, particularly Trident and so the only titles I would be able to rouse here would ‘Trident investment to rise / fall’, ‘SNP to banish Trident’ or, to express my own view, ‘Tories realise at long last that Trident is an ineffectual waste of money and stop pouring money down that particular hole’.
[Later – but see the next story.]
The real headline is Cap on Trident nuclear warhead stockpile to rise by more than 40%.
Credit Tam McDonald/MoD/EPA
Fishing fleet
The Guardian
There is another submarine story my mind has access to. There used to be reports a few times a year of trawlers being dragged for miles because their nets were entangled with submarines – the Russians were usually blamed, although British vessels were sometimes suspected.
The obvious, then,
Reduction (/ Rise†) in death rate amongst fishermen attributed to Brexit.
or an old-fashioned
Loss of trawler and six lives blamed on Russian sub.
But really it can only be about one thing.
Brexit deals the final blow to British fishing fleets
And the real one is The Brexit deal was astonishingly bad, and every day the evidence piles up
Credit Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
† This can be argued either way, probably depending on the reader’s Brexit view.
The Guardian
Dark, satanic chimneys
My association here is with my favourite image from the McCullin show at the Tate two years ago this week, Consett, 1974.
And the train from Swansea to Cardiff, photographing Port Talbot steelworks through the window.
The obvious candidate is
Pollution set to rise as (what’s left of) industry gears up after lockdown
Last coal-fired generators set to close (if the wind keeps blowing)
And the answer is: Ministers watering down green pledges post-Brexit, study finds
Credit: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP via Getty Images
Patel in HofC
When it comes to showing events in Parliament, the papers are limited to screen grabs and so it is interesting to see how the various sides portray individuals by choosing a facial expression or body language and then reinforce that with text. This is Home Sec. Priti Patel debating new home security measures in the light of the Sarah Everard murder and outrageous police action at the London vigil.
Here the question is not ‘what text’ but ‘what image’ to choose. Predictably, the Guardian chooses furtive and under pressure, while in the Times she looks more assertive and confident. the images are shown with and without the text
1-2 The Guardian
3-4. The Times
looks like George Orwell
The Times
This was in the Times obituaries. It reminded me of George Orwell or, perhaps, Bernard Levin. It could illustrate anything from the 1950s or early 60s
The British holidaymakers just don’t understand the Mediterranean climate.
Orwell returns to Catalonia
In fact it was the Sinclair Hood obituary – Austere archaeologist who ran the British School in Athens and was thought a spy – Hood liked to camp on expeditions instead of staying in more comfortable accommodation
No credit.
naked chap with a drink
The Times
This is the colouration some papers use for stories about pollution so I’m going with
City centre sauna closed by rush hour pollution
but I know it’s an Arts story so
Lead dancer injured in modernistic all-male production of Giselle
And the answer is (I didn’t know this because all I saw was, The best live arts to stream this week):
Jack O’Connell in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Credit: JOHAN PERSSON
person in the dark
The Times
This was in the Scottish section. It is a person in a darkened room, probably female, judging by the sleeves
It could be
Cheer up, here comes Summer, or
Solitary drinking takes its toll during lockdown, perhaps
Agoraphobia epidemic feared as lockdown eased.
Really it’s Sex work ban to protect women ignores us, say male prostitutes – Umbrella Lane, a sex worker charity, said the Scottish government’s proposals were sexist and flawed
Credit: GETTY IMAGES
The figure is probably male, then.
Conclusions
[18Mar21] I was surprised and saddened that so much of the imagery is from stock libraries. It would appear that in most cases the papers don’t send a photographer to illustrate the story: the story is written by a hack at home and a junior picture editor exercises the search function at Getty or similar.
I have already stated that I favour minimal, factual, informative text and titles. I have sought to describe the background autobiographical contexts that drive my associations with the images in this exercise, and some others in I&P, notably Square Mile, but that was essential in that scenario. I am quite prepared to be candid and honest about such matters but would not normally be doing that sort of thing if not driven by the course.
So far as I am aware, I will continue to be brief and factual in my text accompanying imagery (unless temporarily diverted by an exercise or assignment) and I will never give misleading information. Nor will I take a photograph that puts another at a disadvantage.
On second thoughts, that applies to private individuals, but politicians, celebs in general and anyone who ‘chooses to be in the public eye’ is fair game.
I&P Exc 4.4 References
Boothroyd, S. and Roberts, K. (2019) Identity and place [I&P]. Barnsley: Open College of the Arts.
