Photography and Rhetoric

 This week we are looking at Roland Barthes theory “The Rhetoric of The Image” and how images can be used to convey information with little or without the use of words. Even so we are a writing based society, images and pictures can still constitute meaning for us, especially in the context of advertising. Barthes talked a lot about the use of imagery in ads, such as the Panzani ad which he examined in the piece. For reference, the image can be found below.

Thus for this prompt, we are asking you go out and get creative. Take a personal picture (that means you are the photographer) and analyze the image that you’ve taken. Explain the connotative and denotative meanings in your photograph that Barthes speaks of and, if you’d like, identify any other signifiers that you can find. If there are words in the image you’ve taken, identify their function or literary message as either anchorage or relay. Be sure to include where you took the image by giving a general location.