Visual Culture & Image Analysis: Film and Theatre Studies Essay

This essay provides a detailed analysis of visual culture through the interpretation of two distinct images. The first image, depicting a member of Eastern Congo's rebel group, explores the contradictory symbolism of a flower headdress juxtaposed with a gun, highlighting the construction and manipulation of meaning within a photograph. It argues that the image portrays a deceptive figure camouflaged in a peaceful guise but harboring violent intentions, emphasizing that meaning is not inherent but produced through observed actions. The second image, a photograph of a lone Jewish woman confronting Israeli security officers, is analyzed in the context of Grahame Clarke's assertion that photographs represent misogyny. It interprets the image as a depiction of the oppression of the vulnerable by the powerful, reflecting the indifference of society towards individual struggles and the bravery required to stand against authority. The essay concludes that both images effectively communicate complex narratives about conflict, identity, and social dynamics through visual representation, demonstrating the power of photography to convey meaning and provoke interpretation.

Running Head: VISUAL CULTURE 1
Understanding Visual Culture

VISUAL CULTURE 2
Answer 1:
The above mentioned image is represents the culture prevailing in a society along with the
activities initiated in that area. The phrase explains that meaning does not inhere in things;
instead the meaning in a picture is being constructed, manipulated and produced accordingly.
Different people according to their thinking capacity review the picture in different sense. A
picture is an object that helps the viewer to gain sense information about the activity happening
in that picture. Every image has its own message to display just like the message given in the
above mentioned image (Hall, 1997).
Understanding the meaning of the phrase through the analysis of the image, it should be
understood that different people have their different opinion. Some people might objectify this
image as a positive aspect while other might take it in a negative sense. According to my
understanding, the image shows a contradicting sense to the viewer. The head band of the
member of Eastern Congo’s rebel group shows their joyous and cheerful nature towards certain
aspects (Kamp, & Reyle, 2013). A flower is a symbol of chastity, loveliness and purity. It shows
that the person wearing the headdress is a strong believer in nature and loves serving the

VISUAL CULTURE 3
humanity. Further on the other side, hands are the only body part that helps a person in initiating
activities in the environment whether good or bad. These hands are a source through which work
is implemented by the person in the society. Looking at the flower accessory it was assumed that
the person is believer of positivity. But on the other hand, the accessory held by the person in
their hand contradicts to the statement. A gun is an object that is a product used for devastating
the nature. In no way it can be used to secure the environment (Mitchell, 2013). Thus, it should
be noted that the representation of gun in the photograph changes the meaning of the headdress
as well. As the gun is the symbol of war and blossoms is the symbol of peace, so the negative
factor in the image supersede the positive factor present in the image and changes its whole
meaning. Now the meaning appears through this image is that a person is camouflaged in that
surrounding holding a gun in their hand so as to decease another life present in the environment.
The person has taken this attire so as to hide his actual identity and false intentions from the real
world. This will help him in catching his prey easily (Salomon, 2012).
Lastly, relating the meaning of the image to the given phrase, it is concluded that meaning that
the image is portraying can be understood by the practices happening in the image. A practice
that produces a result helps in evaluating the meaning of the image. Like, in the given case, a
man holding an aggressive tool is hiding and looking for his prey is a productive activity that
symbolizes the war in real terms. Thus, it should be noted that meaning is not merely seen; it is
constructed and produced by analyzing a significant activity.

VISUAL CULTURE 4
Answer 2:
“Photographs are a strong representation of the misogyny happening in the world” The above
image represents the actual situation of world. According to the given phrase of Grahame Clarke,
it can be explained that each and every picture creates a communication with the real world and
it always creates a specific meaning despite of passive manner of things. Every picture tells a
story that can be interpreted differently by the different people (Clarke, 1997). It only depends on
the perception of people that how they read a picture.
From the above given phrase and image, it can stated that photographs are the universal language
of today’s era. The people who are making up the today’s booming photographic community are
the eyes to the universe. Through attractive images, they inform us, inspire us, entertain us and
put the entire world in the context of history. Relating the phrase of Clarke to the above image, it
can be noted that the image shows today’s actual situation of the world. It indicates how the
strong people are oppressing the deprived people (Roberts, 2007). According to a news article,
this picture is clicked by AP’s Oded Bality who won for breaking news photography for this
photograph of “a lone Jewish woman defying Israeli security forces as they remove illegal
settlers in the West Bank”. It is a magnificent single image which captures the emotion and
chaos of that evacuation (Hall, 2013). By looking at this picture, it can be interpreted that a lone
Jewish settler threatens Israeli security officers during the disputes which exploded as the
authorities have cleared the West Bank settlement of Amona. In this situation, thousands of
people in rebellion stuff and on the horseback fought with several stone throwing Jewish

VISUAL CULTURE 5
immigrants hid themselves in this unlawful West Bank settlement after the decision of Supreme
Court of Israel. This was the situation on which the picture is portrayed by the artist or
photographer.
The above image has successfully depicted the failure of the debate on neutral representation. It
is because of the situation that a single woman is there who has fought for her protection.
However, there were so many people who could come ahead and assisted her to protect herself
from Israeli security officers. But they did not help her as it was not their battle so they were
standing just like audiences (Vivienne & Burgess, 2013). Thus, the picture shows the real image
of world that how a single woman or lone person needs to fight with the strong people of the
community. In the situations as above, people often become more inactive when something bad
happens with the people in their surroundings. They do not make efforts to protect the strangers
from that damage. In the above image, the bravery and audacity of a lone lady against the author
is showed where she did not get the support from society. In the brief, it can be stated that picture
shows daring of a lone lady for her existence and passiveness of the community.

VISUAL CULTURE 6
References
Clarke, G. (1997). How Do We Read a Photograph?’ The Photograph. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Hall, S. (1997). Representation, Meaning and Language’, Representation: Cultural
Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications. p. 24.
Hall, S. (2013). The Work of Representation. London: Sage Publications.
Kamp, H., & Reyle, U. (2013). From discourse to logic: Introduction to modeltheoretic
semantics of natural language, formal logic and discourse representation theory (Vol.
42). Springer Science & Business Media.
Mitchell, W. T. (2013). Iconology: image, text, ideology. University of Chicago Press.
Roberts, J. (2007). Wall Street Journal Leads Pulitzer Parade. Retrieved from
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wall-street-journal-leads-pulitzer-parade/.
Salomon, G. (2012). Interaction of media, cognition, and learning: An exploration of how
symbolic forms cultivate mental skills and affect knowledge acquisition. Routledge.
Vivienne, S., & Burgess, J. (2013). The remediation of the personal photograph and the politics
of self-representation in digital storytelling. Journal of Material Culture, 18(3), 279-298.