Definitions

Aesthetic- patterns in a photographer’s use of visual elements to create beautiful images. These elements can be frame compositions, subjects, color schemes and lighting techniques.

Formalism- Focusses on the formal elements, such as the design, composition and lighting and it is all about the elements, rather than the subject matter, as there is no emotion or context behind the image. The photographer becomes a visual designer whenever a frame is captured. In camera cropping concentrates on the desired subject while eliminating everything else.

Example: The west coast f/64 group, founded in 1932 consisted of a group of photographers working under the formalism movement eg Ansel Adams.

Indexicality- the way a photograph points (like an index finger) to its referent.

Example: Ideas that photographers are closely related to memory, the past, presence, absence and death.

The indexical sign is based in cause and effect, eg. the footprint in the wet sand indicates or traces of recent presence.

Symbols and metaphors can be indexical too.

Representation- photographs that are made of the real world and that represent a place or things relatively realistically.

Representation refers to the way in which individuals, groups or ideas are depicted. The use of the term usually signals acknowledgement that images are never ‘innocent,’ but always have their own History, cultural contexts and specify, and therefore carry ideological implications.

Narrative- the idea that an image or a series of images can be used to tell a story or create a narrative. A narrative is an account of an event or a moment in time, which makes photography the perfect medium for constructing narratives.