My personal study will be looking at binary opposites, specifically old and new. I will do this through comparing old photos with new ones that I have taken in a similar way to these old ones. My project will relate to nostalgia as it will be looking back on old memories and tying to capture them again within new photos. I will focus on observe, seek, and challenge within my photography through observing old photos, seeking new photos through creating them, and challenging the concept of time by showing the effects of it on things such as people and the environment.
Binary Opposites
Binary opposition is a pair of related terms which have opposite meaning, for example good and evil, man and woman, black and white. The two terms I will be focusing on are old and new.
Theory of Binaries
According to the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, meaning is often defined in terms of Binary oppositions, he stated “one of the two terms governs the other.” For example the binary opposition of male-female, where the male is often seen as the dominant gender and women are subservient. This is linked in with the patriarchy, a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.
Claude Levi-Strauss
Levi-Strauss was a French anthropologist in the 1900s, he proposed a theory of ‘binary opposites’, this believes that the majority of narratives in media forms for example books and films contain opposing main characters. These binary opposites help to thicken plot and make a story more interesting. These opposites can be used within photography to make more interesting projects.
