Summary Report

Introduction With the development of technology, human beings are able to capture a memorable moment with a tiny machine which is a camera. A photograph is a sliver of real life and an unedited copy of the real world. In order to analyze the meaning of the photographic image, I found the relevant text-book from Kwantlen University library, The disciplinary frame: photographic truths and the capture of meaning. In this book, the author John Tagg claims that “photography can seem to capture the reality and the eye like no other medium, commanding belief and wielding the power of proof. ” However, in some cases, a photograph itself is attributed the force of the real. In addition, the meaning of photographs are “discursive effects of the regimens that produce them as official record, documentary image, historical evidence, or art.”(18) The photographic that we choose for our presentation is “A letter to Islam: we are women, not things”, which is taken by journalist Louafi Larbi at 2011. The image shows a Muslim woman wearing burqa, covering her body from head to toe except eyes and hands looking and touching a beautiful wedding dress.Our thesis statement for this image is Islamic culture and religion are exploiting Muslim women’s fundamental right. In the following section will briefly discuss about how our analyze this image by applied the theories from the textbook.

Theoretical Concepts Applied

In order to analyze the photographic image that our team used in our presentation. We will apply several key concepts and theories from our textbook, Practice of Looking: An introduction to visual culture. These theories including: ideology, representation, producers’ intended meaning and concept of studium and punctum. After applying these concepts onto the image, our group believed that it could be able to approach more critically to invisible messages of the image contained.

Ideology The first theory that our team applied to our photographic image