Possible in Photography

Abstract

Photography is a form of expression. It uses images to communicate. Previously called heliography, daguerreotype, or calotype, the process of capturing images in a permanent way was assigned the term photography by Sir John F. W. Herschel in 1839 (Newhall 2009, p. 21). The etymology of photography comes from the ancient Greek and it is composed by two words: photos and graphein. Photos literally means "of the light." Graphein means writing. Photography is the writing of the light. Every time we take a photograph, we are "writing" a message and it is important that we know how to 'write' this message to properly communicate. Photography uses a complex system of signs in the same way as written language does. The complexity of this system of communication arises from the way that the used signs can be misinterpreted and create different associations for each viewer/ reader. This is one of the reasons why photography as a visual language has been studied by semiologists (