WHAT INFORMATION CAN A PHOTOGRAPH GIVE YOU? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

A photograph can provide information about people and their mood, places, time, elements of composition, weather, and even information from the photographer himself.

Photographs have tremendous power to communicate information. The way they are read plays a fundamental role in the information we receive, since any misinterpretation can lead to a failure in the communication process.

Reading the information contained in a photograph represents a challenge for the reader, who must use a question code to decode, evaluate and respond to it.

A photograph is always made up of a series of elements from which information emerges. These elements include composition, moment, context, and focal point, and are directly affected by the photographer.

Content of a photograph

When a photograph is used to send a message, as in mass media and web content, its content must be critically analyzed and the photographer's intentions must be sharply defined.

It is very important to think and pay attention to all aspects of the image, since this will be the one that speaks for the photographer.

The information contained in a photograph must be carefully detailed and can be revealed by asking how, when, where, what and why a photograph was taken.

It is the last question, the "why" is essential to be able to read the information that a photograph can provide. In this way, the reader must ask the following:

• Why did the photographer select these items? and What is not seen in the photo?
• Why does the photographer emphasize some elements and not others? What is the focus of the photography? Is it a human being, one or several objects?
• Why did the photographer take the photograph at that time? What happened before or after taking the picture?
• Why was it taken from this angle? How could the scene be seen if the photograph had been taken from another angle?

The photographer's decision

Once all the important questions are asked to reveal the information contained in a photograph, the reader must place his mind on the scene as if he were the photographer. This way you can understand all the decisions that were made about how, when and where to take the photograph.

Thus, the only way to read the information contained in a photograph is by considering the possible decisions that the photographer made when taking it.

In a more technical way, we must understand the composition, the moment, the context and the focal point of the image. These are the fundamental elements that speak most clearly in a photograph.

The composition

A photograph provides information about the composition. The photographer must decide where to stand, where to move the camera, whether or not to zoom in on the scene.

In this way, the composition comprises all the elements that are contained in a photograph.

The composition will depend on the decision of the photographer to frame certain elements over others. In this way, if the photographer decides to cut a photo, he will completely alter the composition as the focal elements will change and the message will be different.

The moment

A photograph can also provide information about when it was captured. This moment is defined by what happened before and can happen later.

The photograph tells us why the photographer decided to take it at that moment and not before or after.

In the case of a burst of photos, the photographer will choose one that conveys what he wants. In this way, information about the decisive and greatest moment can be transmitted.

Cartier Bresson declared in 1994 that his passion was not photography, it was being able to capture in a split second the emotion of an individual and the beauty contained in that emotion.

The context

The context of a photograph can be a circumstantial matter or a conscious decision. In general, news event photographers take pictures of the news they are covering, they are given the context in which to take the picture.

However, some photographers plan in what context they want to take the photo and prepare the photo session in a particular location.

In either case, the decision of where the focal point is located can give an indication or a sense of the context in which the photograph is being taken.

The focal point

The focal point of a photograph is the point to which the reader's attention is directed. It is the point that provides the most information and the protagonist of the photo.

On some occasions, the reader's eye can be drawn to the photograph by using a play of light and depth of field in different places in the photograph.

The photographer must select the focal point and highlight it not only when focusing but using other techniques. For example, adjusting the shutter speed to focus only on one item immediately highlights the focal point of the image.

Information reading

Just as the photographer makes decisions about the information that is contained in the photograph, the reader makes decisions in the way he reads this information.

The reader will always have the possibility to decide how he wants to read the composition, the moment, the context and the focal point contained in a photograph.

In many photographs, information regarding composition, timing, and context is deliberately made explicit by the photographer. There are visual "clues" that can tell the reader who the people in the photograph are, what they are doing, and when the precise moment the photo was taken was.

In other cases, all the information is implicit in the photograph and does not clearly communicate the will of the photographer. In this way, it is left up to the reader to infer what is contained in the photograph from questions and assumptions about the moment, context and purpose of the photograph.

References

1. Clarke, G. (1997). How Do We Read a Photograph. In G. Clarke, The Photograph (pp. 27-39). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Harvey, M. (September 23, 2010). Seeking Michigan. Retrieved from “Reading” a Photograph: seekingmichigan.org.
3. Jeffrey, I. (2009). How to Read a Photograph: Lessons from Master Photographers. Harry N. Abrams.
4. (2017). Nuovo. Obtained from Basic Strategies in Reading Photographs: nuovo.com
5. Oosterhoff, D. (December 10, 2015). Envatotuts +. Obtained from How to Read a Photograph: photography.tutsplus.com.
6. Salkeld, R. (2014). Reading Photographs: An Introduction to the Theory and Meaning of Images. London - New York: Bloomsburry Publishing.
7. THIBAULT, M., & WALBERT, D. (2003). Learn NC. Retrieved from Reading photographs: learnnc.org.