Semiotics of Photography — On tracing the index By Göran Sonesson, Lund University, 1989 Report 4 from the Project “Pictorial meanings in the society of information” ________________________________________________________________________ Page 2 Part III. Photography – Tracing the index 2 Contents Introduction 4 III.1. Semiotic approaches to photographic specificity 6 III.1.1. A short history of photographic semiotics 7 III.1.2. A note on the four methods of semiotics and the three approaches to photography 32 III.1.3. On the specific sign character of photography 39 III.1.3.1. The nature/culture debate in photography 40 III.1.3.2. Introduction to a theory of traces. Aspects of indexicality in the work of Vanlier 49 III.1.3.3. From the general theory of indexicality to the photographic index. A critique of Dubois 61 III.1.3.4. The imprint of a likeness. Reflections on Schaeffer´ s theory 70 III.1.4. On some marginal indices of photography 82 III.2. The text analytical way to photography 90 III.2.1. Floch reading Cartier-Bresson and beyond 90 III.2.1.1. Three versions of the plastic layer 94 III.2.1.2. A few icons for indexicality 104 III.2.1.3. Concluding remarks 111 III.2.2. On a self-portrait by Florence Henri 112 III.2.2.1. Man Ray caught in the act 112 III.2.2.2. Plastic analysis according to two schemes 116 III.2.2.3. The mirror of iconico-indexical analysis 122 ________________________________________________________________________ Page 3 Part III. Photography – Tracing the index 3 III.2.2.4. Conclusion on layers and versions 128 III.3 Some observations on photography and postmodernity 130 Bibliography 134 ________________________________________________________________________ Just some more semiotic bullshit on photography. My tolerance for this bullshit is basically zero. The US MFA system... Part III. Photography – Tracing the index 4 Part III. Semiotics of photography - On tracing the index Introduction In the first part of this treatise, we suggested that semiotics, apart from fixing the nature of the pictorial sign, should be able to tell us something about the way signs may differ, while still being picture signs: how, for instance, the photographic sign is diffferent from the drawing and the painting. With this aim in view, we have been looking at the impressing number of analyses produced so far inside pictorial semiotics, trying to establish, first, to what extent the presuppositions of the analyses, as embodied in the models, differ between the diverging picture types; and second, how far the results of the analyses are heterogeneous, even when the model is identical to begin with