Mary Short's Context and Narrative.

In my feedback from my 3rd assignment my tutor said it might be good for me to have a look at Maria Short's book Context and Meaning, now I'm guessing she might have got the title slightly wrong because what I managed to find was one called Context and Narrative which seems to cover the theme of meaning in our photography so I've had a read of this instead. Below is a brief overview of what I learned from my read.

-The basic idea of the book is to give the read an insight into conveying meaning in our photography and how to create much stronger images.

-In the first chapter she explains the function of photography talking about the value of photographs in today's world and whether the 'realities' that they show are real or constructed to give more impact to what the photographer wants the viewer to perceive.

-In the second chapter she looks at the subject and how one of the greatest challenges to a photographer is translating ideas into images.

-The third chapter looks at Audience, she explains how any photo to work needs input from the viewer usually falling back on there own life experience to be able to take meaning from the image.

- Chapter 4 on Narrative was the part I found most interesting as it looks at the idea that it doesn't have to work in the same way as with written work. By this I mean if your narrative is spread though a number of images, they don't need to be in a fixed sequence they could be in any number different combinations but the narrative is still clear. Being consistent in your presentation is important though because it makes it much easier to take in a body of work if all the photos are the same size and colour throughout.

-The next chapter has the title of Signs and Symbols and looks at how these can be used to create stronger groups or single images. Again as with narrative there has to be good consistence for this to work but there are issues with how a viewer might interpret these depending on cultural differences,age,experience etc.

-The final chapter looks at the use of text and how it is sometime necessary to include text to present your message to the intended view, little use is always best after all photography is a visual art form where you should always need to be told what you're looking at, but you should be given the time to make your own judgement on an image.

I've only at this point had a quick flick and read but this is so far what I've taken from the book with more time I'll be reading more fully because's its clear to me this will help with my work going forward and in my final presentation. There's one part in the conclusion that I just wanted to highlight as I feel it true of all photography and a useful thought "the relationship between the photographers internal understanding of themselves, relationship with the world around them, motivation and discipline as well as their desire to grow and develop are all manifested in their work", for me I hoe this will be very true when considering my own work in the future.