Response to Miller's, Pictures for Rent

This article is an intersting view into the niche of stock photography as an example of how photographs can act as semantic currency. This is because what is contained in a picture is heirarchical, and these subtopics can be exploited when combined with other ideas/media of related content.

I found the artistic interpretations of artistic commentary of stock photography particularly interesting. Why "Post-human" (the piece with the 4 seperate men on the telephone next to a photo of a woman reclining on the telephone) works is because it plays to the inherent taxonomy of the social language within the photographs. The use of the "invisible/cordless" communication lines of the telephone connect all of the subjects (of which the 4 men are grouped yet seperate, and spatially equal to the woman). Once this connection is identified the roles of the figures are considered with the men being "executive" (mysoginistic) and all vieing for space (or attention) from the woman who is portrayed reclining in a bikini (suggesting her work-role affords her time to relax while others work).
All of the specificities contained in a photograph are somewhat fluid to a certain extent, with larger headings identifying formal qualities. Special interest groups can sift through stock photographs by identifying the formal qualities within the photo (man/woman, # of people, location, etc). However the details color the specific message within the particular event being "documented." And this type of photograph can play on traditional framing and composure to focus content.

The reference to Irving Goffman was interesting in that he deals with social roles and the masks we adopt in an attempt to include ourselves socially, at least from his book "Presentation of Self in Everyday Life." So I view this as relating to the gestures and objects having imbued with social connotations.