The Search For Pure Denotation

In the Roland Barthes reading “The Photographic Message” the author discusses the duality of messages contained within still photographs. This duality is comprised of two messages, a denoted message and a connoted message. Throughout the reading Barthes thoroughly explains those points and towards the end comes to an idea which is quite compelling and had been on my mind since I began the reading. He poses the question “Is this to say that a pure denotation (in a photograph) is impossible?”

Meaning, do photographs without a connoted code exist anywhere? Are there any pictures that are just pictures with no hidden agenda or messages intended or purposefully prepared by the producer of the image? Barthes explains, a “shock photo” is the photograph about which there is nothing to say, just a traumatic image. I assume what Barthes is trying to say is: there is no hidden message the image holds or “says.” The trauma speaks for itself right away. That doesn’t mean the image has nothing to say, it has a lot to say about whatever traumatic instance it depicts, and it “says” it all right on the surface.

Being intrigued with shock photos and Barthes viewpoint regarding them, I choose a picture from the Washington Post coverage of the earthquake aftermath in Haiti. This photo could be mistaken for a picture of any given disaster, but the picture was published at a time when the earthquake in Haiti was the most recent enormous catastrophe. Also, the picture’s caption adds more timely distinction. The graphic photo comes with the caption “Foreign governments and aid organizations around the world mobilize to send assistance to Haiti, after the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the impoverished island nation devastated much of the capital. The Jan. 12, 2010, quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0, was centered about 10 miles west of Port-au-Prince.”

The picture appears to be of a Haitian woman that has just been pulled from under rubble, similar to hundreds of other Haitian earthquake victims. Is there connotation in this image; or is the message is all on the surface? The photo denotes human suffering and a shared togetherness as people work tirelessly to attempt to rescue their neighbors. However, the caption depicts the global efforts to aid Haiti in their time of need. Also the author calls Haiti an “impoverished island nation.” Does this connote that the fact that there were no global efforts at all to aid the impoverished nation before the earthquake? The reader can ponder, why were they so impoverished when there are nations around the world ready to help? Why did it take a devastating calamity to bring aid to this nation? These questions can seem out of place but it’s up to the reader to associate any kind of connotations that come to mind.

Perhaps the reader doesn’t ask these questions and maybe the producer of the caption didn’t intend on raising them either. Do certain captions add a connotation on traumatic shock photos that would otherwise not have any? Perhaps, more often than not, the reader’s imagination and creativity determines how many hidden connoted messages they can find in a photograph.
Additionally, Barthes calls captions “parasitic messages” but this particular caption is a very broad statement and could coincide with any photo of the devastating aftermath in Haiti, thus the caption could survive on its own, perhaps even without any pictorial support at all.

-Author Does Not Exist