Assignement 2E

For the final part of this assignment I had to return to my original three photographs and add one word to one of the pictures. The intention being to get the majority of people asked to come up with my 'target' story. I therefore decided to add the word honeymoon to my image of the hotel. Here are my results:

• Jackie, 47, Retired : Woman planning her honeymoon destination.
• Belinda, 48, Receptionist: Woman getting married and going away on honeymoon.
• Jen, 22, Argos Worker: The old woman's necklace was found in the trunk underneath the skyscraper.
• Kirsten, 22, Fashion Student: Lets get packing for the honeymoon.
• Gillian, 22, Argos Worker: On our honeymoon he said he had a surprise. He pulled out a necklace from his suitcase.
• Tom, 19, Town Planning Student: The girl goes on honeymoon to this expensive hotel.
• Levi, 79, Retired: Woman gets married to her true love. They pack up their belongings for a honeymoon together.

I think my experiment has agreed with Barthes theory. He suggests that images can depict various messages. These messages may be picked up by some individuals but not others. Cultural knowledge plays a big role in what people will interpret from photographs as the degree of knowledge on certain subjects will vary amongst different members of the population.

Activity 2C and 2D show how different people pick up on different messages from the images I showed. Some people had similar stories but some varied greatly. Finally Activity 2E also supports Barthes theory. In the Chapter, I read, of the Rhetoric of the Image Barthes explains how important the lingustic message is. He identifies that text is needed in order for the audience to confirm what is behind an images meaning. My experiment shows that by adding the word 'honeymoon' the majority of people came up with similar stories which were very closely related to my 'target' story. I think its quite interesting how by adding just one word it can change peoples thoughts on a series of images.