anandi raMaMUrTHY
Constructions of illusion:
Photography and Commodity Culture
Anandi Ramamurthy is a senior lecturer in film and media studies at the University of Central Lancashire in England and a registered researcher for the British Film Institute. Her research focuses on advertising images of Africans and Asians from the British colonies, more specifically the cul- tural and economic impact of these racist advertisements. In addition, she analyzes representations of postcolonialism and immigration in film. Her article “Constructions of Illusion: Photography and Commodity Culture” was originally published in the collection Photography: A Critical Introduc tion (2000).
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The Photograph as Commodity
To the late twentieth century, commodity relations rule our lives to such 1 an extent that we are often unaware of them as a specific set of historical, social and economic relations which human beings have constructed. The photograph is both a cultural tool which has been commodified as well as
a tool that has been used to express commodity culture through advertise- ments and other marketing material. Tagg has described the development of photography as “a model of capitalist growth in the nineteenth century” (Tagg 1988: 37).
Like any cultural and technical development, the development of pho- 2 tography has been influenced by its social and economic context. The rise of commodity culture in the nineteenth century was a key influence on the way in which this technology was developed and used. John Tagg’s essay provides just one example of the way in which photographic genres were affected by capitalism. He discusses the demand for photographic por- traits by the rising middle and the lower-middle classes, keen for objects symbolic of high social status. The photographic portraits were affordable in price, yet were reminiscent of aristocratic social ascendancy signified by “having one’s portrait done.” Tagg describes how the daguerreotype and later the “cartesdevisite” established an industry that had a vast clientele and was ruled by this clientele’s “taste and acceptance of the conventional devices and genres of official art” (Tagg 1988: 50). The commodification of the photograph dulled the possible creativity of the new technology, by the desire to reproduce a set of conventions already established within painted portraiture.
If we look at other photographic genres, we can also observe the way 3 in which commodity culture has affected their development. Photojour- nalism for instance, like other journalism, is primarily concerned with the selling of newspapers, rather than the conveyance of “news.” For this rea- son, news photos, as Susan Sontag has noted, have been concerned with the production of “spectacle” (Sontag 1979). Just as photographic genres have been affected by commerce, so has the development of photographic technology. The “Instamatic” for instance was clearly developed in order to expand camera use and camera ownership. In turn, this technology lim- ited the kind of photographs people could take (Slater 1983).
Were this chapter to discuss the commodification of photography in 4 detail, it would be difficult to limit it, and it would most likely encroach on the subject area of every chapter in this book. Therefore this chapter will concentrate on the way photography has been used in representing commodity culture. In this sense, it will be as much about the decoding of visual commercial messages as about photography. Although the focus is on the specific qualities of photography in the production of commercial messages, photography forms part of a broader system of visual commu- nication including painting, printing, as well as the broadcast media.
Photographs to Represent Commodity Culture
The use of photography within advertising and marketing does not consti- 5 tute a particular genre. In fact, this area of photography borrows from all established genres, depending on particular marketing needs. Within the traditional “history of photography,” commercial photography has been ignored, despite the fact that photography produced for advertising and marketing constitutes the largest quantity of photographic production. One possible reason for the lack of documentation and history-writing in this area is that commercial photography has not sought to stretch the medium of photography. One of the key characteristics of photography within advertising and marketing is its parasitism. It borrows and mimics from every genre of photographic and cultural practice to enhance and alter the meaning of lifeless objects — commodities.
Commodities are in fact objects — often inert — that have been imbued 6 with all kinds of social characteristics in the marketplace. Marx called this process the fetishism of commodities, since in the marketplace (which means every place where things have been bought and sold) the social character of people’s labor was no longer apparent and it was the products of their labor instead that interacted and were prominent. Advertising, in its turn, imbues these products with meanings which have no relation to the production processes of these objects. Advertising is a cultural form which is integrally linked to capitalism, and constitutes part of the system of production and consumption. Raymond Williams has discussed this relationship and the development of advertising in his essay “Advertising the Magic System” (Williams 1980). Thomas Richards, in a discussion of Victorian advertisements, describes commodity culture as the “culture of capitalism” (Richards 1990: 1–16). As Robert Goldman points out, “ads offer a unique window for observing how commodity interests conceptu- alise social relations” (Goldman 1992: 2). The representation of social rela- tions in advertising has also been discussed in other texts on the history and study of advertising (Leiss et al. 1986; Myers 1986).
Photographs have played an important role in the production of signs, 7 that have invested products with what Marxists have described as false meanings. They have also played an important role in the representation of commodity culture — namely, the culture of capitalism — as natural and eternal. (For a discussion on this, see Barthes 1977a.) In this way photo- graphs in advertisements are a key tool for the making of ideology.
Breadth of Usage
The range of contexts within which photographs are used to sell products 8 or services is so enormous that we are almost unaware of the medium of photography and the language which has been created to convey commer- cial messages. Photographs for commerce appear on everything from the glossy, high-quality billboard and magazine advertisements, to small, cheap flyers on estate agents’ blurbs. Between these two areas there is a breadth
of usage, including the mundane images in mail-order information and catalogues, the seemingly matter-of-fact, but high-quality documentary- style images of company annual reports, the varied quality of commodity packaging, and of course the photography on marketing materials such as calendars, produced by companies to enhance their status. While there are a number of critiques on advertising imagery, these tend not to be con- cerned with the photograph in particular. Other areas of commercial pho- tographic production have received relatively no critical attention from scholars. If any history or literature has been written, it has tended to be commissioned by the companies themselves, or their associates, such as Thirsty Work: Ten Years of Heineken Advertising and Some Examples of Ben son Advertising. These publications have also been unconcerned with the photographic aspect. More recently, articles such as Carol Squiers’ “The Corporate Year in Pictures” have begun to provide an analysis to some of this photography (Squiers 1992).
Much of the discussion will focus on advertising, partly because it 9 is an area rich for discussion, but also because it will enable us to con- sider some of the literature which critiques this photography. Through a closer look at ads we can understand the ideological significance of them and other commercial photographs in our lives as well as the hegemony of commodity culture. By analyzing a run-of-the-mill advertisement, we can understand how advertisements are constructed and act ideologically to support commodity culture, and can also see how photographs are employed in the making of ideology.
Case Study: Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion — The Commodification of Human relations
The main photograph in the advertisement is a rather soft focus dreamy 10 image of the head and shoulders of Elizabeth Taylor, who appears to be wearing nothing but some diamond studded jewellery. Bright lights (per- haps stage lights) reflect off the jewelery and Taylor herself to present an image which is one of stardom. From our own cultural history we know that Liz Taylor has been associated with heroines such as Cleopatra — a passionate, determined, and arresting woman.
A crystal clear photograph of the bottle has been inserted into the 11 main photograph on the right-hand side. The juxtaposition of bottle and Elizabeth Taylor’s face in the advertisement obviously encourages their association. Purples and pinks within both images also affiliate the two images. The historical and cultural associations which we make with Liz Taylor through her film career are associated here with a bottle of scented liquid. Interestingly, under the bottle of perfume is written “Elizabeth Tay- lor’s Passion.” This lifeless bottle of liquid appears to have been given a human quality. There is another possibility of meaning too — the bottle is
not her passion, despite the use of the possessive, but is the object of her passion. This notion is also enhanced by the glass object which Elizabeth Taylor appears to hold. It is the glass stopper from the perfume bottle. Liz Taylor has obviously opened the bottle and unleashed “passion,” as though it is a quantifiable thing which can be bottled and unleashed in this way! Whether we interpret the perfume as containing Elizabeth Tay- lor’s passion or being the object of her passion, the metamorphosis of the commodity as in some way human is complete. In the first instance it con- tains a human quality; in the second, passion — a human emotion, which occurs between people — takes place here, between a person and thing. The photographic montage is crucial in this creation of meaning. There is another statement in the advertisement which makes it resonate with further meanings: “Be touched by the fragrance that touches the woman.” Here, we are invited to join in an experience in which stars have taken part. Yet, we are not simply coaxed into consumption by suggestions of glamour and beauty which Taylor may represent for us. The suggestion is also that she is the woman, imbued with qualities of womanliness. The image of Liz Taylor is of course one of standard femininity; she is even looking upwards, suggesting subservience. Her passivity is also increased by the way she holds the bottle stopper. She hardly seems to hold it at all. We cannot imagine those hands actually pulling open the bottle. One easy avenue offered to us in the search to be not just Elizabeth Taylor, but also womanly, is to use Passion. The commodification of human relations is one of the most pervasive influences of modern advertising, and photogra- phy plays an important role in creating images expressive of human emo- tions and relations which are used to give products superficial or “false” meanings. The pervasive nature of advertisements and the power of the photographic image not only leads us to be unaware of a process, which, when considered rationally, appears absurd, but also enhances these sur- face meanings above those of other product meanings which may exist through manufacture. What does it cost to produce the perfume? How much were the factory workers who produced and packaged Passion paid? Were they allowed to join a union? What were the health and safety con- ditions for the workers like? Was Passion tested on animals, and did it lead to animal suffering? Only eight cents out of every dollar in the cos- metics industry goes towards buying ingredients. Even this one piece of information can make us realize how little the advertisement tells us about the products in production. At the same time the ads provide an alluring image, the constructed meanings of which are enhanced by photographic realism, creating a culture in which it appears natural not even to want to know the context of production. These constructed meanings are not simply illusions; rather “they accurately portray social relations which are illusory” (Goldman 1992: 35).
The Photographic Message
The photographic message, as Roland Barthes wrote, is made up of both 12 a denoted message and a connoted message (Barthes 1977b). By the denoted message Barthes meant the literal reality which the photograph portrayed. In the case of the ad for Passion (see case study above), this would be the image of Liz Taylor and the perfume bottle. The second, connoted, message is one which he described as making use of social and historical references. The connoted message is the inferred message. It is symbolic. It is a message with a code — i.e., Liz Taylor signifies beauty, passion, feminity, nobility, and mystique. When we look at the documen- tary photograph, the denoted image appears dominant. We believe the photograph to be “fact,” although, as Tagg has pointed out, it is impossible
to have a simple ‘denoted’ message — all messages are constructed (Tagg 1988: 1–5). All photos are simulations and record moments discontinuous with normal time, and documentary images are highly coded both by the photographer’s perspective and the privileging of certain moments, and also by the newspaper captioning of an image. The image for use in adver- tising, however, is different, in that we know from the start that it is highly structured. In the discussion on passion, I have already mentioned how the photograph of Elizabeth Taylor does not show her holding the bottle stopper properly. It is obviously a constructed and coded image. The play of light and the soft focus used in her portrait are also constructions, here used to convey romance. The use of soft focus in photography has often been used to signify romance and also femininity, as Pollock has men- tioned in her reading of a Levi’s advertisement (Pollock 1990: 215–216). The commercial photograph is not therefore perceived as primarily docu- menting real life. We are therefore unconsciously aware when reading the image that the connoted message is the crucial one.
However, while we know these images to be highly constructed, we are 13 often unaware of the ways in which meaning is framed within them. The framing and structural devices which advertisers use are so well estab- lished that we read them unwittingly. Robert Goldman has described the classic advertising format as that of “the mortise and frame” (Goldman 1992: 61–85). He intends us to understand framing as the process of “selec- tion, emphasis and presentation,” and describes how all photographs are framed in production. In the ad for Passion, the photograph of Liz Tay- lor, for example, has been framed in such a way as to exclude any clothed part of her body, in order to increase its sexuality. A mortise, as Goldman notes, is a joiners’ term for the joining of two pieces of wood together by making a cavity in one, into which a second piece is inserted. In the pro- duction of advertisements, the mortise in the small boxed image which usually contains the image of the product (e.g., the bottle of perfume). The photograph of the product is usually in a clear ‘showroom’ style, which
suggests that it is purely documentary, but its frontal angle is one that we would never see in real life. This clear and stark style in itself sets it apart from the larger and usually more atmospheric photographic image, while they are structurally associated in the advertisement. Through this device, advertisers encourage us to combine the meaning of two separate and often seemingly incompatible messages. In the ad for Passion, the image of Liz Taylor and her human qualities of being a passionate woman are transferred to a bottle of perfume; i.e., a material thing is given human value and a human emotion is defined materially. Judith Williamson also discusses the association of two separate images in advertisements in her book Decoding Advertisements. She makes the important point that the process of association is one that actively involves the viewer in the pro- duction of meaning. She describes the viewer’s role in producing meaning as “advertising work” (Williamson 1978: 15–19).
While it is useful to consider the form separately, Judith Williamson 14 has also noted that it is impossible to divide the form and content entirely, since there is content in the form also. Most scholars considering ques- tions of representation use methods first discussed in linguistics to decode visual signs (Williamson 1978: 17):
A sign is quite simply a thing — whether object, word or thing — which has a particular meaning to a person or group of people. It is neither the thing nor the meaning alone, but the two together.
The sign consists of the signifier, the material object, and the signified, which is its meaning. These are only divided for analytical purposes; in prac- tice a sign is always thing-plus-meaning.
In the ad for Passion, Liz Taylor is the signifier of passion, which is 15 the meaning signified. Through the structure of the ad, the perfume bottle also acts as a signifier of passion, although it does not actually have such
a meaning. It is the “work” we do in reading the grammar of the ad — in reading its structure of form — that leads to the connection between the two signifiers being made.
The Transfer of Meaning
In his essay “Encoding/Decoding,” Stuart Hall has considered our involve- 16 ment in the production of meaning in more detail (Hall 1993). He discusses how images are first “encoded” by the producer, and then “decoded” by the viewer. The transfer of meaning in this process only works if there are compatible systems of signs and symbols which the encoder and decoder use within their cultural life. However, our background — i.e., our gender, class, ethnic origin, sexuality, religion, etc. — all affect our interpretation
of signs and symbols. For this reason, Hall points to the fact that messages are not always read as they were intended to be. He suggests that there are three possible readings of an image: a dominant or preferred read- ing, a negotiated reading, and an oppositional one. The dominant reading
would comply with the meaning intended by the producer of the image. The importance of readers interpreting images as they were intended is obviously crucial for commercial messages, and is one of the reasons why advertisers use the various framing devices which have been discussed above. Hall describes the negotiated reading as one which only partly conforms to the intended, dominant meaning. Finally the oppositional reading is one which is in total conflict with the meaning intended by the image-producer. A feminist interpretation of the advertisement for pas- sion, which challenged the notion of “womanliness” presented by the ad, could be viewed as oppositional. Examples of ordinary people producing oppositional readings through graffiti have been collected by Jill Posner in Spray It Loud (Posner 1982). In Reading Ads Socially, Robert Goldman cites an example of a cigarette advertisement which was misinterpreted by many readers to create an oppositional meaning. In 1986, Kent ciga- rettes launched an ad campaign which depicted two people flying a kite on a page. In order to involve the viewer in the advertisement, the adver- tiser emptied the figures of content so that the reader could literally place themselves in the ad. Viewers, however, interpreted the silhouetted fig- ures as ghosts because of the health warnings about smoking to which we have been accustomed (Goldman 1992: 80–81). The question of reception brings in to doubt the notion of global advertising which companies such as Coca-Cola and Benetton have tried to create. Can there really be world- wide advertising campaigns? People across the world will surely find dif- ferent symbolic meanings in the same signifiers.
The Creation of Meaning in Photographic Styles
All photographs will be viewed by different people in different ways, 17 whether in commercial contexts or not. The same photograph can also mean different things in different contexts. The commercial context, for example, can change the meaning of an image, just as different styles of photography will carry different messages. Let us look at an advertise- ment which does not use a style of photography normally associated with advertising. Because advertisers have traditionally been concerned with creating glamorous, fantasy worlds of desire for their products, they have tended to shy away from the stark, grainy, black and white type of imagery traditionally associated with documentary images and photojournalism, and have gone instead for glossy, high-color photography. Yet, at times of company crisis, or when companies have wanted to deliberately foster an image of no-nonsense frankness, they have used black and white imag- ery. In 1990, a short while after Nelson Mandela was released from jail by the South African authorities, the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa brought out an advertisement entitled “Do we sometimes wish we had not fought to have Black trade unions recognized?” Underneath this title was a documentary photograph of a Black South African miner, in a show of victory (see page 842). At a moment when Anglo-American foresaw
South african miners demonstrating outside the offices of the organization of South african Mine owners, (Independent, 26 August 1987). This photograph was used, torn from the newspaper page as it is here, by the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa in their advertisement DO WE SOMETIMES WISH WE HAD NOT FOUGHT TO HAVE BLACK TRADE UNIONS RECOGNIZED?
(Published in the Guardian, 2 April 1990.)
massive economic and political change, they attempted to distance them- selves from the apartheid regime. Yet Anglo-American was by far the larg- est company in South Africa, “with a new total grip over large sectors of the apartheid economy.”1 While presenting this advertisement to the public, De Beers — Anglo’s sister company, in which they had a 35 percent stake — also cancelled their recognition agreement with the NUM at the Premier Diamond Mines, despite 90 percent of workers belonging to the union. The frank and honest style of address which black and white provided hid the reality for black workers in South Africa. The miner depicted was in fact celebrating his victory against Anglo-American in 1987. Here, at another moment of crisis, Anglo-American have appropriated this image of resis- tance. The parasitism of advertising enables it to use and discard any style and content for its own ends. Anglo-American are no longer interested in fostering this image (they declined permission to have the advertisement reproduced here). There is an added irony in Anglo-American’s use of this
image, since it is not strictly speaking a documentary image at all, but a montage of two images to capture the mood of the strike as the Indepen dent saw it.
Black and white imagery has been used in other company contexts 18 at moments of crisis. Carol Squiers has discussed the way in which they have been used in annual reports. Black and white, she notes, “looks more modest and costs less to print.” As Arnold Saks, a corporate designer, said: “There’s an honesty about black and white, a reality.................................................................................. Black and
white is the only reality” (Squiers 1992: 208). The symbolic value of using or not using a photograph has also been important for advertisers. Kathy Myers has explored the moments when advertisers have chosen to use and not use photographic images in an attempt to find symbols of ecological awareness (Myers 1990).
Hegemony in Photographic representation
Commercial photography constantly borrows ideas and images from the 19
wider cultural domain. It is clear that when we point the camera we frame it in a thousand and one ways through our own cultural conditioning. Pho- tographs, like other cultural products, have therefore tended to perpetuate ideas which are dominant in society. Commercial photographs, because of their profuse nature and because they have never sought to challenge the status quo within society (since they are only produced to sell products), have also aided in the construction and perpetuation of stereotypes, to the point at which they have appeared natural and eternal (see Barthes 1977a; Williamson 1978, part 2). Through commercial photography we can there- fore explore hegemonic constructs of, for example, race, gender, and class.
Photomontage — Concealing Social Relations
One of the key ways in which commercial photography has sought to 20 determine particular readings of images and products has been through photomontage. Advertisements are in fact simple photomontages pro- duced for commercial purposes, although most books on the technique seem to ignore this expansive area. While left photographers like Heart- field use photomontage to make invisible social relations visible, advertis- ers have used montage to conceal “reality.” One of the peculiar advantages
of photomontage, as John Berger wrote in his essay “The Political Uses of Photomontage,” is the fact that “everything which has been cut out keeps its familiar photographic appearance. We are still looking first at things and only afterwards at symbols” (Berger 1972b; 1985). This creates a sense of naturalness about an image or message which is in fact constructed. An early example of the photomontage naturalizing social relations has been discussed by Sally Stein, who considers “the reception of photogra- phy within the larger matrix of socially organized communication,” and looks at the rise of Taylor’s ideas of “scientific management” in the factory,
and the way these ideas were also applied to domestic work (Stein 1981: 42–44). She also notes how expensive it was to have photomechanical reproductions within a book in the early part of the century.
Yet in Mrs. Christine Frederick’s 1913 tract, The New Housekeeping, 21 there were eight pages of glossy photographic images. This must have impressed the average reader. In her chapter on the new efficiency as applied to cooking, an image was provided which affirmed this ideology as the answer to women’s work. The image consisted of a line drawing of an open card file, organized into types of dishes, and an example of a recipe card with a photograph of an elaborate lamb dish (see page 845). Despite Frederick’s interest in precision, the card, which would logically be delin- eated by a black rectangular frame, does not match the dimensions of the file, nor does it contain practical information such as cost, number of serv- ings, etc., which Frederick suggests in her text. As Stein points out, how- ever, most readers must have overlooked this point when confronted with this luscious photographic image, which they would have accepted at face value.
Because the page is not clearly divided between the file in one half and the recipe card in the other but instead flows uninterruptedly between drawing below, text of recipe, and photograph of the final dish, the meticulous orga- nization of the file alone seems responsible for the full flowering of the dish. As a symbolic representation of modern house work, what you have in short order is a strict hierarchy, with an emblem of the family feast at its pinnacle.
— Stein 1981: 43
The more down-to-earth questions of time and money are ignored and almost banished. In response to those who believed that her reading was too contrived, Stein wrote: “If it seems that I am reading too much into this composite image, one need only note the title of Frederick’s subse- quent publication — Meals that Cook Themselves” (Stein 1992).
There are two key issues we can draw from Stein’s analysis. Firstly, 22 the example highlights the power of the photographic image to foster desire. While a rather ordinary image of a cake may have impressed an early twentieth-century audience, in the late twentieth century we are also mesmerized and impressed by the use of the latest technology, and it is still used to seduce us. Digital image-making is probably the field which is most effectively used today to capture our attention. We can see this clearly within TV commercials, such as the recent advertisements for Guinness and Holsten Pils lager. Spellbinding technology is also used within print advertisements, especially for photographic equipment. Ektakron film, for example, used a close-up of a bird’s beak in 1989 to stun the viewer and the possible detail that could be achieved by using this film. The impact of the latest technology makes us forget the context of production, and the immediacy of the image makes the surface reality seem more real.
Illustration from Mrs. Christine Frederick’s The New Housekeeping, 1913.
Concealing Labor Relations
The second issue that Stein’s analysis elucidates is the power of photomon- 23 tage in the commercial context to conceal labor relations. Judith William- son has also discussed this with regard to a Lancia car advertisement from around 1978. The image depicts the Lancia Beta in an Italian vineyard. It shows a man who appears to be the owner, standing on the far side of the car with his back towards us, looking over a vineyard in which a number
of peasants are working happily. In the distance, on a hill, is an old castle (this image is illustrated in Williamson 1979).
Williamson asks a series of questions: 24
Who made this car? Has it just emerged new and gleaming from the soil, its finished form as much a product of nature as the grapes on the vine?..................................................................................... Who
are these peasants? Have they made the car out in this most Italian field? . . .
How can a car even exist in these feudal relations, how can such a contra- diction be carried off? What is this, if not a complete slipping over of the
capitalist mode of production, as we survey a set of feudal class relations represented by the surveying gaze of possession, the look of the landlord with his back to us?
— williamSon 1979: 53
Williamson also notes how the feudal Italian owner’s gaze does not encom- pass both care (the product of industrial capitalism) and the owner’s field of vision (the relations of Italian feudalism). She discusses the structure of the advertisement in order to understand why we don’t question the contradictions of the image. The ad uses the traditional grammar of car advertisements with the showroom-effect camera angle, which intersects with the representation of “Italianness.” The positioning of the car seems so casual that the man leaning against it could have just stopped to have a break and look at this Italian view. Maybe he is not Italian? Perhaps he will drive off and leave the “most Italian” scene behind. The narrative of chance on the horizontal axis of the photograph naturalises the vertical axis of Italian castle feudal relations and commodity ownership.
Contemporary advertisements also provide examples of the romanti- 25 cized and non-industrial working environments. Hovis and other whole- meal bread producers have often used the image of the family bakery.
Whisky distillers have also used this image to represent their brand as one which has been produced with special attention and one that has the expe- rience of time behind it. . . .
Gendered Representations
Much of the literature which considers racist and sexist imagery, whilst 26 using commercial photography for examples, has tended to discuss broader cultural readings rather than the commercial or photographic context.
This section will discuss gendered representations.
The stereotypical and highly coded representations of women in popu- 27 lar culture have been given attention by many critics (Berger 1972a; Win- ship 1987a, 1987b; Williamson 1978). One of the key criticisms has been
Women’s hands have traditionally been photographed in ways that make them appear passive and decorative.
the way in which ads always represent women as objects to be surveyed. This has tended to increase the representation of women as objects to be surveyed. This has tended to increase the representation of women as both passive and objects of sexual desire. Erving Goffman has explored the body language used to represent men and women in his book Gender Advertisements to show how women in particular have been photographed for advertisements in ways that perpetuate gender roles (Goffman 1979). It is important to remember that the photographer always surveys his or her subject and personally selects what is believed to be worth pho- tographing. The photographic process can also, therefore, exacerbate the voyeuristic gaze.
To understand the way in which men’s and women’s bodies are cod- 28 ified, we can look at the representation of hands in advertisements (see Winship 1987a). While male hands are often represented as active in advertising, female hands are usually represented as passive and deco- rative. In the Passion advertisement described earlier, for example, Liz Taylor did not even seem to be holding the bottle stopper properly; her hands were simply represented decoratively. In the ad above the female hand appears passive, with the cigarette only propped lightly between her fingers. It is also the woman’s body — represented by fragments of her body here — that are highlighted as objects of sexual pleasure through the bright red nail polish. Today this coding continues, even in advertisements which appear to represent a degree of partnership. An advertisement for
Donna Karan perfume shows the male hands still taking the key role in an embrace. The man’s arms practically cross the whole double-page spread. In contrast, the woman’s hands simply curve upwards to touch his arms gently. Her action and pose do not enable her to play an equally active role in the embrace.
The fragmentation of the body — particularly women’s bodies — is a 29
feature of recent commercial photography. It makes the body more eas- ily commodified and, with that, desire is also more easily packaged. In a content analysis of lipstick ads, Robert Goldman has pointed out that while most lipstick ads in 1946 depicted the whole body of a woman, by 1977 most ads only showed a part of the body (see ad on page 849). In this way beauty too is fragmented and commodified into ideal “types” of lips, noses, eyes, etc. One of the most famous examples of this fragmentation is the early 1980s advertisement for Pretty Polly tights, which depicted a woman’s legs appearing out of an egg. This objectification and fragmenta- tion of a woman’s body received criticism at the time, with graffiti that read “born kicking.” As Pollock indicates, it was only “after Picasso had visually hacked up the body, [that] we have been gradually accustomed to the cut- ting up of specifically feminine bodies: indeed, their cut-up-ness has come to be seen as a sign of that femininity.” Significantly, Pollack adds that this “came to be naturalized by photographic representation in film, advertis- ing, and pornography, all of which are discourses about desire that utilize the dialectic of fantasy and reality effects associated with the hegemonic modes of photographic representation” (Pollack 1990: 218; my emphasis).
So far I have concentrated on photographs within advertising, yet we 30 cannot allow this area to subsume all discussion on photographs for com- merce. Here, it is worth considering the genre of fashion photography, since this area of commercial photography has been particularly targeted with regard to discussions on the construction of femininity and gendered representations.
In The Face of Fashion, Jennifer Craik provides an historical account 31 of the techniques of fashion photography from early photographic pic- torialism of the nineteenth century, through the gendered constructions
of the 1920s and 1930s which increasingly represented women as com- modities, to the increasing dominance of the fashion photographer in the 1960s and the influence of filmatic techniques which led to clothes becoming more and more incidental within the fashion photograph. Craik also draws our attention to the increasing eroticism of 1970s and 1980s fashion photography. Most importantly she notes that the conventions of fashion photography are “neither fixed nor purposeful” (Craik 1994: 114). It is perhaps for this reason that critical literature on the genre as a whole is sparse. Most of what has been written does not provide a critique of
The commodification and fragmentation of women’s bodies is a common feature of contemporary commercial photography.
the genre as a whole, but tends to consider the constructions of gender and sexuality within these images. Femininity, as Craik notes, “became co-extensive with the fashion photograph” by the 1930s. The heightened sexuality of the fashion image in the 1970s and 1980s, with the work of photographers such as Helmut Newton, has been discussed by Rosetta Brooks (Brooks 1992: 17–24).
The way in which women read fashion images of women has also been 32 explored (see Evans and Thornton 1989: ch. 5). As Berger commented: “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at” (Berger 1972a: 47). As far as the photographic quality of the spreads are concerned, these have tended to be discussed in books, often commissioned by commer- cial enterprises such as Vogue, which eulogize these images and their relationship to “Art” photography. In this process the work of individual photographers has been discussed, rather than the genre itself. It is worth noting that even in their discussions of the fashion image and sexuality, that Brooks, as well as Evans and Thornton, discussed the issue through key examples of work by particular photographers. Their essays provide critical case studies of fashion images from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s
by photographers such as Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Deborah Turbeville. In marking out fashion photography as an area for discussion, it seems clear that the glossy images which are mostly discussed contrast
to the fashion photographs of the average mail-order catalogue, which could be described as fashion illustration.
Several signs or features of the fashion image which have been pointed 33 out by various writers are worth considering together in order to under- stand the genre. Firstly, the transitory nature of fashion has impacted on the fashion image. Evans and Thornton have discussed this in terms of the ability of the fashion image to take “extraordinary liberties” and get away with images which are unduly violent, pornographic, or outrageous. Polly Devlin has pointed out the contradictory nature of the fashion image’s transitoriness, by their aim to be both timely and timeless: “Its subject is
a product with built-in obsolescence, and the result may be an amusing, ephemeral picture or a monumental statement” (Devlin 1979: 113).
There are other contradictions apparent within the fashion image. 34 Rosetta Brooks has suggested that in fashion photography “we see the typical instead of the unique moment or event.” Yet, at the same time as producing the typical, fashion photographers have aimed to construct
a sense of what is original and unique within a particular fashion. They have also tried to produce images which stand their ground beyond the transitory space of the magazine and the transitory nature of fashion, and for example enter the gallery or the coffee-table book. The Vogue Book of Fashion Photography and the major Victoria and Albert Museum exhibi- tion and its accompanying catalogue Appearances: Fashion Photography since 1945 are testament to this conflict (Devlin 1979: Harrison 1991). Both provide a good collection of images of the classical fashion photo- graph, although the historical essays tend to be uncritical of the genre. It is clear that there are tensions in the relationship between fashion pho- tography and both advertising photography and “Art” photography. The fashion image attempts to stand aloof from the undiluted commercial con- text of advertising, since most fashion spreads are commissioned by maga- zines which are not directly selling clothes. Yet the undeniable commercial angle has separated it from the “Art” photograph, despite the inevitable commercial context of the latter.
The relationship of the fashion spread to magazines rather than the 35 manufacturers also emphasises the importance of the images’ ability to project “a look, an image, a world” (Evans and Thornton 1989: 82). Their aim is not simply to highlight clothes, but rather to create identities. This construction has affected all fashion images, including those now pro- duced by manufacturers. As Steve Edwards wrote, with regards to the Next Directory:
As we flip the pages multiple identities whiz past our eyes. Distance and depth collapse into the intricate and exquisite surface of the image. What is there now to prevent us switching back and forth between these marvelous identi- ties” She: now sipping tea on the lawn of the country seat, bathed in golden light, “well-dressed, well-bred,” in that “endless summer.” Now the belle of
the southern states, young and raw, perhaps with an illicit negro lover. Now
the cultured woman, on her travels through Europe in search of adventure. He: from the big city gentleman, to the rugged biker, to the fictions of Havana. These are the worlds that the photograph has to offer Our only choice
is between its choices, we have no choice but to consume...... or so the argu-
ment goes.
— edwaRdS 1989: 5
In constructing these identities, fashion photography also allows us to view the social attitudes of a period.
In creating worlds of illusion, fashion photography has been influ- 36 enced by all other areas of photographic practice. Early portrait photogra- phy and the cartedevisite had already established ways of photographing people in fashionable or dramatic clothing, which were adopted by early fashion photographers (Ewing 1991: 6–10). Fashion photographers such
as André Barre, Irving Penn, and Erwin Blumenfield have also been influ- enced by Surrealism. The power of photojournalism and documentary photography in the 1930s also affected fashion images, especially as pho- tographers moved between the genres. Yet, the concentration on what is contrived and stylized rather than the “captured” moment, so revered in documentary, continues to set it apart. Films have also influenced fashion photography, both in terms of content and the creation of looks and styles and the way in which we are able to read what would otherwise appear as fragmentary and disjointed image sequences in the fashion spread. In creating images and “looks,” the fashion photograph — in its attempts to always find something new, different, glamorous, and often “exotic” — has also been influenced by the increasing experience of international travel. In the following case study we will therefore explore fashion and travel images together. This should indicate the impossibility of considering various commercial image-making forms in isolation. We live in a world dominated by lifestyle culture, whose conventions are “neither fixed nor purposeful.”
Case Study: Tourism, Fashion and “the other”
In this case study we will consider a particular hegemonic construction 37 from the nineteenth century — that of the exotic/primitive “Other” — and explore the way in which it has been exploited in the commercial world.
Some of the most dominant ideological and photographic constructs were developed during the nineteenth century, a period of European imperial expansion. This history has affected the representation of black people in all forms of photographic practice (see Gupta 1986; Bailey 1988; Ten/8 16; Ten/8 2(3)). During the nineteenth century, the camera joined the gun in the process of colonization. The camera was used to record and define those who were colonized according to the interests of the West. This unequal relationship of power between the white photographer and the colonized
subject has been discussed by many (Bate 1993; Schildkrout 1991; Pro- chaska 1991; Freedman 1990; Edwards 1992). These early anthropologi- cal and geographical photographers were sometimes paid employees of companies who organized campaigns to explore new markets. Emile Tor- day, for example — an anthropologist who used photography as a research aid — was paid by the Belgian Kasai Company to explore the Congo.
This history of photography is integrally linked to colonial and eco- 38 nomic exploitation. A sense of submission, exoticism, and the “primitive” were key feelings, which these photographers documented and catalogued.
Through these images, the European photographer and viewer could per- ceive their own superiority. Europe was defined as “the norm” upon which all other cultures should be judged. That which was different was disem- powered by its very “Otherness.”
During the period, the sense of “Otherness” and exoticism was not 39 only captured “in the field” but was also exploited by photographers work- ing in commercial enterprises. Malek Alloula has documented the genre of exotic/erotic colonial postcards which were sent by French colonists back
to France. In his book The Colonial Harem he discusses images of Algerian women taken by French studio photographers in Algeria (Alloula 1987). In the confines of the studio, French photographers constructed visions of exoticism which suited their own colonial fantasies and those of the European consumers of these images. The paid Algerian models could only remain silent to the colonizers’ abuse of their bodies. These images encapsulate Edward Said’s description of Flaubert’s Egyptian courtesan:
She never spoke of herself, she never represented her emotions, her presence or history. He spoke for and represented her. He was foreign, comparatively wealthy, male, and these were historical facts of domination that allowed him not only to possess Kuchuk Hanem physically but to speak for her and tell his readers in what way she was typically oriental.
— Said 1985: 6
The dominance of photographs of women in these commercial images is not by chance. Colonial power could be more emphatically represented through gendered relations — the white, wealthy male photographer ver- sus the non-white, poor female subject. These images, bought and sold in their thousands, reflect the commodification of women’s bodies generally in society. They are also part of the development of postcard culture which enabled the consumption of photographs by millions. The production of exotic postcards also brought photographs of the “Empire” and the non- European world into every European home. It was not only the photo- graphs of non-European women which were sold: landscape photographs, which constructed Europe as developed and the non-European world as under-developed, were also popular (Prochaska 1991). These colonial visions continue to pervade contemporary travel photography, not only through postcards, but also in travel brochures and tourist ephemera.
Tourism
Today, many areas of commercial photography exploit exoticism and 40 “Otherness,” along with the ingredient of glamour to invite and entice viewers and consumers. In this way, some of the ideological constructs
of colonial domination have become so naturalized that we hardly notice them. In the tourist industry, images of exoticized women and children in traditional garb are used to encourage travel through tourist brochures, posters, and TV campaigns. With submissive smiles and half-hidden faces these images, echoing those discussed by Alloula, continue to construct the East as the submissive female and the West as the authoritative male (see page 854). The non-European world is represented as a playground for the West. The bombardment of these images denies the reality of resourcefulness and intense physical work which actually constitutes most women’s lives in the Third World. In the 1970s, Paul Wombell commented on this construct in a photomontage, which contrasted the fantasy tourist world with the reality for many Asian women workers in Britain. In many tourist advertisements, the image of work is so glamorized that we cannot perceive the reality.
The dominant photographic language of the tourist brochure has also 41 affected how tourists construct their own photographs. These snapshots tend to reinforce the constructed and commodified experience of travel: what is photographed is that which is different and out of the ordinary.
Most tourist snapshots also use a vocabulary of photographic practice which is embedded in power relations. Let us look at the photographs by Western tourists in the non-Western world. Tourism within Europe pro- duces a slightly different set of relations. In the non-Western world, the majority of tourists who travel abroad are Western. Automatically a rela- tionship of economic power is established, both generally and in terms of camera ownership.
While Don Slater (1983) has discussed the contradictory way in which 42 the expansion of camera ownership has not led to new or challenging pho- tographic practices in the non-Western world, this contradiction between ownership and practice is less evident. Tourists, having already consumed
an array of exotic and glamorized photographs of the place before arrival, search out these very images and sites to visit and photograph in order to feel that their trip is complete. While many of the experiences revolve around architectural monuments, the desire to consume exotic/anthro- pological images of people has found a new trade, which has its parallel in the earlier studio-anthropological photography. In many tourist loca- tions — in India, Morocco, and Algeria, for example — men and women sit in elaborate garb which the tourist can recognize as traditional and, more importantly, exotic. These people wait for those willing to pay to have their photograph taken with them. Tourism creates its own culture for con- sumption. Just like the model in the studio, he or she is also paid by the photographer to conform to an image which has already been constructed.
“Morocco,” 1990. The “East” is still represented as an exotic and erotic playground for the “West.”
Alternatively, at other sites, the tourist can dress up as part of the exotic experience, and photograph themselves (see page 855). The trade in these new “anthropological” images may have expanded to include the unknown snapshooter, but their purpose is not to encourage an understanding of a culture, but rather to commodify and consume yet another aspect of a place through the photographic image — the people.
Fashion
In fashion photography the consumption of “Other” worlds is domesti- 43 cated through the familiar context of the fashion magazine and the more- often-than-not white model. In some cases it is hard to know where one genre ends and the other begins. Within fashion, the ordinary is made
to appear extraordinary, and vice versa. Fashion photography, as I have already mentioned, is blatantly concerned with the constructed photo-
Tourist Photograph. This photograph was taken in a carpet shop where tourists could dress up and role-play in a mock Bedouin tent.
graph. It is also concerned with what is exotic, dramatic, glamorous, and different. Therefore, it is easy to see how some photographers have moved between areas of anthropological and fashion photography. Irving Penn’s Worlds in a Small Room are a series of constructed images of peoples from around the world, whom Penn photographed while on assignments for Vogue (Penn 1974). In these images the genres of fashion and visual anthropology seem to collapse. The images tell us little about the people, but say a lot about Penn’s construction of these people as primitive and exotic. As with the fashion shoot, these images are contrived and stylized, and Penn is at pains to find what is extraordinary and to create the dra- matic. The isolated space of the studio removes the subjects from their own time and space, in a similar way to the French colonial postcards dis- cussed above, and gives the photographer free rein to create every aspect of the image. Interestingly, Penn described this studio space as “a sort of
arabia Behind the Veil (British Marie Claire, September 1988)
neutral area” (Penn 1974: 9). Yet, as we look through his book and peruse the photographs of Penn constructing his shots, the unequal relationship of power makes a mockery of the notion of neutrality.
The latent relationship between fashion and popular anthropologi- 44 cal photography explains why the fashion magazine Marie Claire could include articles about ethnography without losing the tone of the fashion magazine. In their first issue, the article “Arabia Behind the Veil” repre- sented the jewellery and make-up of Arab women in a series of plates, like fashion ideas (see above and opposite). If we look closely at the images it is clear that the photographer has used just two or three models and dressed them differently to represent a series of styles, just like a fashion shoot.
arabia Behind the Veil — cont’d
In fashion photography we can see the continued use of the “harem” 45
image, for example, as the site of colonial fantasy and as being oppositional to the white “norm.” In the November 1988 issue of Company magazine, a fashion spread titled “Arabesque: Rock the Casbah — This is Evening Wear to Smoulder in” features nonwhite women in brocaded clothes, sit- ting and lying indoors on heavily ornamented fabrics, while pining over black and white photographs of men. The photographs of the women are bathed in an orangey, rich light. By contrasting color and black and white photography, the men seem to appear more distant and further unobtain- able. The representation of sexuality here is of an unhealthy obsession. In contrast, the fashion spread following it, “Cold Comfort,” features a white
couple together, in a relationship of relative equality. Blue and brown pre- dominate, in contrast to the previous spread, and the much more standard photographic lighting contrasts with the previous yellow haze, to present images which seem much more matter-of-fact, like the denim clothing advertised. Here, however, matter-of-factness acts to represent Europe as rational in opposition to the irrational East.
In Marie Claire’s June 1994 issue, another pair of fashion spreads also 46 provides an example of the oppositional way in which East and West are presented, not just through content, but also through photographic codes.
In “Indian Summer,” the image of an exotic woman in physical and sexual abandon predominates the pages, as in the previous spread and the colo- nial postcards already discussed. The pages of this photo-story are almost like a film sequence with rapid cuts. As in the last “Orientalist” sequence, this woman is alone, but the themes of physical and sexual desire are para- mount. Many of the shots use wide angles to enhance their depth and, along with rich oranges and blues, it gives the sequence a heightened sense of physicality. The spread which follows this, entitled “The Golden Age of Hollywood,” contrasts by representing white men and women together, in relative harmony. This sequence is much more about glamour than “Cold Comfort,” yet here again the notion of rationality is also encouraged by the style of clothing as well as the standard photographic lens used. There is also an almost colonial feel to this fashion spread, through the sepia tones of the photographs and the 1930s styling. The other important differ- ence between the two fashion spreads is that, while the latter concentrates on the clothing, the former concentrates on atmosphere. The context of these images within the fashion magazine leaves the predominantly white women as the surveyors of “Other” women.
While I have discussed the use of colonial and exotic photographic 47 messages in tourist and fashion photography separately, within the recent dominance of lifestyle culture there is little difference between these forms. Sisley’s photo “magazine” from Spring/Summer 1990 makes this clear. The subject of this fashion label’s photo magazine was a Moroccan caravan tour. Along with the series of travel photographs of a European man and woman, presumably in Sisley clothes, is the male traveller’s diary.
There is no written information on the clothes, and they are clearly not the main subject of the photographs, which concentrate on building up an atmosphere of unhindered travel. It is not just the fashion advertiser that has manipulated “the exotic” into a lifestyle and a fashion statement. Fash- ion magazines such as Elle and Vogue have done the same. Elle’s fashion spread from November 1987 entitled “Weave a Winter’s Tale of Fashion’s Bright New Folklore” was shot in Peru, and combines photographs of the season’s clothes with tourist brochure images (see page 859). The main text is of a travel diary, with a subtext of photo titles that combine tourist descriptions and clothing details that include prices. Here, Peru is turned into the flavor of the month for fashion influence and tourism, which are not distinguished between in layout and photographic format. In a similar vein, Vogue focused on Egypt in their May 1989 issue.
Tourism and fashion marketing collide in this feature. (British Elle, November 1987).
Images and photographs for both these magazines are the key to their 48 commercial success. Here, there is also no distinct line between the adver- tisement and editorial photograph. What is clear, however, is the domi- nance of commercial interest in all these photographic images, which are contrived and stylized and are “positioned on a threshold between two worlds: the consumer public and a mythic elite created in the utopia of the photograph as well as in the reality of a social group maintained by the fashion industry” (Brooks 1992: 18–19).
Don Slater has criticized the semiotic critique of advertisements (charac- 49 terized by writers such as Roland Barthes and Judith Williamson) for tak- ing as assumed precisely what needs to be explained — “the relations and practices within which discourses are formed and operated” (Slater 1983: 258). Barthes’ and Williamson’s readings of advertisements have only pro- vided a very limited social and historical context. Often even simple pieces
of information, such as the magazine from which the images have been extracted and the date of advertisements, have not been mentioned. Liz Wells has commented on some of the limitations of Decoding Advertise ments, especially Williamson’s lack of consideration of multiple readings (Wells 1992).
While scholars have devoted some space to the understanding of a 50
broad cultural context, the exploration of political and economic contexts is more rare. The vast array of commercial messages has also made their contextualization increasingly difficult. It would be impossible to contex- tualize them all. Information about processes of production are not always easily available, and this increases the reality of consumption over that of production:
What commodities fail to communicate to consumers is information about the process of production. Unlike goods in earlier societies, they do not bear the signature of their makers, whose motives and actions we might access because we knew who they were........................... The real and full meaning of production
is hidden beneath the empty appearance in exchange. Only once the real meaning has been systematically emptied out of commodities does adver- tising then refill this void with its own symbols. Production empties. Adver- tising fills. The real is hidden by the imaginary.
— Jhally 1990: 50
To decode photographs and advertising images more effectively, it is essen- tial for us to understand their context. Let us take, for example, William- son’s reading of the Lancia car advertisement (1979). Would a discussion of Lancia manufacturing and car production in the late 1970s reveal more about the image?
Since the founding of the Lancia firm in 1907, Lancia had been known 51
for their production of quality cars for gentlemen, as one writer described it. With increasing conglomeration in all industries throughout the twen- tieth century, Lancia, as a family firm, ran into trouble and was eventually taken over by Fiat in 1969 (Weernink 1979). The Beta saloon was the first car to be produced by Lancia after the merger. First, which was known for producing smaller, cheaper cars, needed to distinguish the Beta from its own cars. Style and quality needed to be suggested, and “Lancia — the Most Italian Car” was the slogan used to enhance the sense of stylishness of the Lancia range generally. It is this slogan which has been visualised in the 1979 advertisement discussed by Williamson.
Apart from asserting a sense of style and quality, why has Lancia cho- 52 sen to represent any form of labor relations in the advertisement? Most car advertisements of this period tended to talk about the car itself and
its features — for example, its economical use of petrol or the size of its boot. This advertisement does not discuss the car’s actual features at all. In the late 1970s strikes took place in many major industries in Britain and Europe. In September 1978, for example, the Ford car workers at Dagen- ham went on strike for nine weeks. Car manufacturers generally must have wanted to maintain an image of good industrial relations. The illu- sion of the contented happy peasant worker in the vineyards depicted by the ad discussed earlier glosses over the general unrest that was present during this period. Finally, the image of the peasant worker could carry another function. During the mid-1970s, the car industry began to intro- duce microprocessors into production for increased automation. The peasant workers depicted in the ad, outside of industrial production, also acted to represent Lancia has a quality “hand-crafted,” “gentleman’s” car.
Image Worlds
Let us look at an example of marketing photography, where an understand- 53 ing of the context within which images are produced helps us to perceive the extent to which commercial interests affect photographic practice.
David Nye, in Image Words, gives us a detailed exploration of the context of production, dissemination, and historical setting of General Electric’s photographs between 1900 and 1930 (Nye 1985). As Nye notes, commer- cial photographers do not strive for uniqueness (as does the artist pho- tographer), but rather for a solidity of a predictable character. In spite of their documentary appearance, Nye notes the contrast between the images produced by a socially concerned documentary photographer and a com- mercial photographer, even when the subject is the same. He compares two photographs of Southern textile mills, one by Lewis Hine, the other by a photographer working for General Electric. While Hine emphasises the people and children in the mills who work in potentially dangerous environments, the commercial photographer’s image stresses machinery, electrification, and technical progress (Nye 1985: 55–56).
Nye also notes how, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the man- 54 agement of General Electric discovered the need to address four distinct groups — engineers, blue collar workers, managers, and consumers. Their desire to say different things to different groups affected the production of images for the company’s various publications. While the General Electric Review (a company-sponsored scientific journal) used photographs which emphasized the machines, the publications for workers employed images which concentrated on the idea of the corporation as community.
Nye not only notes the varying sorts of photographs for different pub- 55 lications, but also the changing production of images over time. While images from 1880 to 1910 expressed a sense of relationship between work- ers and managers (they were often photographed together), images after
Schenectady Works News General Electric (2 November 1923). Images which represented individual workers engrossed in a piece of interesting work domi- nated the cover of Works News during the 1920s. It did not represent the reality for most workers, but presented images which gave a certain dignity and harmony during a period fraught with conflicts.
this date present a picture of a workforce which was much more highly controlled by management. Nye details how by the 1920s General Elec- tric had 82,000 workers in their employment, in contrast to 6,000 in 1885. The burgeoning workforce made management’s role more important, and the artisanal skills of the previous era had also all but disappeared. Labor unrest began to increase during the 1910s. In 1917, partly in response to these conflicts, General Electric began to publish a magazine called Works News which was distributed to all blue collar workers twice a month. The paper did not address the general workforce, but was tailored to each site.
The covers of the magazine produced a new kind of photographic image not previously used by the company. They featured individual skilled work- ers photographed from head to toe and engrossed in a piece of interesting work. This kind of image was repeated on the cover of nearly every issue of Works News (see page 862), and did not represent the reality for most of General Electric’s employees; but, since these workers were individualized and isolated, the generalization was only implicit. These kinds of images hardly existed inside the magazine, which concentrated instead on the workers — as a community which went on holiday, played in sports teams, and participated in other forms of recreation. The style of the cover photo- graphs had a history in Lewis Hine’s work a decade earlier. He had aimed to represent and give dignity to “real men” in difficult work. In adopting this style, the General Electric photographers were simply using it as a representational strategy to define the image world of the General Electric plant. It is only through an appreciation of the context of the image that we can understand the intent in the production of images by Hine and the General Electric photographer as different, and can therefore appreciate the different meanings of the image. The production of meaning is a pro- cess: As Marx noted in Grundrisse:
It is not only the object that production creates for consumption . . . [It] also gives consumption its precise nature, its character, its finish............................................................................. Hunger is
hunger, but the hunger that is satisfied by cooked meat eaten with a knife and fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meat with the aid of hand nail and tooth. Production thus produces not only the object but also the manner of consumption, not only objectively but also subjectively.
— maRx quoted in Slater 1983: 247
noteS
1. As stated in anti-Apartheid campaign literature of the time.
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CHriSTinE roSEn
Virtual Friendship and the new narcissism
Christine Rosen currently works as a senior editor of the New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology & Society, which published “Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism” in 2007. Rosen’s article likens contemporary social networking profiles to the portraiture of previous eras. Both types of por- trait mark the subject’s status. However, users of social networks, who rep- resent an increasing segment of the U.S. population, also convey status by collecting, displaying, and managing friends. Rosen questions the effects
