Formal analysis of one photograph chosen by student making use of two Essay

Formal analysis of one photograph chosen by student making use of two different methodologies taught in the module - Essay Example Semiotics is the use or capturing of visual meaning within an image. It can be described as a language within itself, without the need for words. Indeed, it is clear that ‘The Power of One’ is extremely emotive, its language powerful and vast and immediate. What is the visual meaning of this image? As has been already mentioned, this image has the potential to evoke contradictory visual meaning, depending on what one sees and on whether one solely sees rather than reads into the image. The implicational qualities of images alone create an array of possibilities as to how an image will be read and just what the observer will see both at the beginning and during the observation of an image. That is to say that what one may see or feel or notice, and how one will accept an image when first viewed may not necessarily be, and is usually not the same as that after observing and examining an image for some time. Images are different from texts of actual language, and this cause s one to approach an image with uncertainty; ‘The Power of One’ does not tell one how to feel or what exactly it is – there is no actual language. And so, one must decipher the unwritten yet strongly visible language portrayed. This is where the previously mentioned conflicts become apparent. Indeed, it is quite simply an image of a woman, but is she defying the soldiers or protecting her land? The expression on her face is pained, perhaps she is trying to simply protect her land†¦or it could be determination and anger, perhaps she is defying the soldiers, fighting them. But let us look at the image as a whole, for there is a great deal more language contained in other elements which will allow one to understand perhaps on a deeper level the woman and the purpose of her presence. We can see the language of the soldiers – the clothes they wear are black; a menacing colour of death; they are all male. The woman wears household clothes; she is a woman