Photo - Barthes & Berger

Basically rendered images often more instantly recognisable than a photo - fewer details for the mind to process, so the brain picks up immediately on the recognisable attributes that define the image.
Comparisons between Van Gogh's shoes painting and a logo of some trainers - Van Gogh's image represents a particular pair of shoes, and the fact he painted them imbues them with some meaning, backed up by the environment they're painted in. Logo presents nothing but a basic representation - some shoes, not "these" shoes. Has no referent.

Barthes

• essence of photographic image is its necessary inclusion of a referent. The objects documented within it are always realistic, detailed copies, not vague outlines.
• you can never skip beyond the real thing represented in it to cut straight to the concept; you remain anchored in the world. referent is inescapable.
  - BUT - what about 'abstract' photography? where the camera is used to 'draw' an indistinguishable form? e.g. light trails, blurring, etc - to the point where that's all the image is composed of, abstract presence of light and colour - where's the referent then?
• studium - everything in a photo that reflects typical cultural knowledge, cliches, stereotypes etc.
• punctum - element of surprise in a photo that punctures this bubble of comfortable, self-perpetuating complacency. E.G. Nicaraguan revolution photo with nuns crossing road - why are the nuns, the image's punctum, there? Because they are. Because they happened to be there; they don't fit our preconceived notions of what should be in the photo, but there they are anyway. And their presence recontextualises the whole image, provides an extra layer of REAL reality to an image that already supposedly documents reality.
• photo declares referent's - this - existence at a particular time - this has been. Photos make history instant - they cut out passage of time's middle man. Stops the flow of time - says "this is no longer" but also brings what was into the present. Preserves the past, but unlike a painting, can't present direct ideas about the future.

Berger

• perception of the image is based on what we know about it - photo is an empty, instantly-made image, not a memory complete with surrounding context, nor a painting, constructed from a complex series of authorial decisions.
• captures ONE isolated moment; WYSIWYG. Furthermore it has no language, unlike drawing; no sense of process; it quotes rather than translates, and therefore like any quote, is open to manipulation and different interpretations.
• "all photos are of the past but a photo arrests the past so it can never move forward" - Berger... --> Baudrillard and Fukuyama's end of history.

Photos perceived to be facts - but they aren't - facts must have context, cause & effect, etc - photo just captures one instant, one slice of the complete truth, which could be typical or anomalous for all we know.

The painting was a series of judgments and decisions. Photo