Different people interpret photographs in many different ways. The way the photo is interpreted by a person can depend on what kind of job they have, how old they are, and how or where they grew up. Photos can also have an emotional effect on a person and bring back memories. How do you interpret the photograph on page one? Does it bring back any memories? How does the photograph make you feel?Jean Mohr says what is happening is "Great Britain, in the country. A small girl was playing with her doll. Sometimes sweetly, sometimes brutally. At one moment she even pretended to eat her doll." Out of all the interpretations, from our group, which one do you find the most imaginative? Does Jean Mohr's description make any sense to you?Now there are different kinds of photographic meanings. Allan Sekula thinks, "All photographic communication seems to take place within the conditions of a kind of binary folklore." His ways of describing photographs are; symbolist folk-myth or realist folk-myth and art photography vs. documentary photography. When photographs are read the photographs fall toward one of these two poles of meaning. Do you think there is any other way to describe photographs? Why or why not?On page two there is a photograph with a caption that is not shown that reads "A Red Hussar leaving, June 1919, Budapest." What do you see in the photograph? When John Berger reads the photograph, he says that there is drama going on between the soldier and the mother. He also looks at every item in the photo, the uniform, the rifles, the corner by the railway station, even the trees on the other side of the fence. He almost fabricates a story on what is happening in the photo, and what will happen sometime after the photo was taken. He also makes the assumption of who all of the people are and what their relations are to each other; a friend, a sister, a father, a husband. Berger reads photographs by what time period the photo was taken in. H...
