In both Practices of Looking and Film Art, they interpret and say that images can be interpreted both in literal meaning, as in, what is literally going on in the image, and what the viewer thinks the image means to them. The book Practices of Look also puts emphasis on the differences between the audience, which is the wider group of people, and the viewer being the individual, which separates its self from Film Art. Both books would say that the literal interpretation or, as it’s called in Film Art, the “narrative elements” (the term is generally used to described films, but it could also be used to describe a photographic image) is a picture a black woman holding a white baby, but it’s what the viewer interprets (called the Referential and explicit meaning, in Film Art) about the picture that’s really important in viewing and analyzing a image. For me, (a viewer) I think one thing that’s interesting, about the image is the contrast between the baby and the lady and the background. Everything else in the picture, the baby and the background is so white and bright, except for the woman, which, I’m assuming the photographer meant to do, and is not just a coincident. One topic that that isn’t really addressed in Practices of Looking, that is in Film Art, is the idea of “emotions represented in the artwork and an emotional response felt by the spectator” (Bordwell 53), and this very much relates to the image in point. Robert Frank, the photographer, could have meant for the image to have a cretin emotion captured in the image, where as the viewer may or may not see that same emotion. I believe this image is suppose to have some emotional effect on the viewer so this topic is one that works well with this image
In Practices of Looking, it explains that ads are meant get the image across to the viewer, and do, even if the viewer doesn’t believe that the ad “relates to them” or that the ad “portrays people like them”. Although the image isn’t an ad, this is still one specific way in which the material in Practices of Looking relates directly to the image. The time in which the picture came out (1955) was a time when there was still racism going on and not everyone was “comfortable” and accepting of everyone else. I believe the picture was trying to get people to realize that and to make individuals at that time (and is still a image that reflects the time) see how people were looking differently at “people of color”, which is what the image portrays. The woman stands out so much in the picture, that a viewer could see that as the photographer trying to get them to think about how they look at others that are different from them. As we discussed in class (and it mentions in Practices of Looking), the idea or message that the producer (in the case, the photographer) is trying to relay to the viewer may not always be what the viewer interprets. So whether the photographer was trying to make a statement about race at that time, is not completely cretin, but the viewer has the right to interpret it how every they want. Practices of Looking and Film Art, both touch on the same issues, but also talk about different ways of look at images and the different ways in which we can interpret an image or film.
