Seminar 1 The Picturesque Period and the Taming of the English Landscape Deconstructing Environmental Photographers

Please study the image below carefully. You are asked to analyze the image in order to understand the meaning and the photographers intention. Through the process of your interrogation, you will be able to understand the narrative behind the image. You are asked to examine the image through its relationships to various contexts such as the political, social, historical and cultural. Please see the questions below, helping you to structure your research and give you starting points for your process of interrogation. Please collect your research and prepare an individual blog entry of at least 300 words. You must have completed this task including blog entry at the end of your group-session on Thursday the 27th September 2012.
What is represented and communicated in the photograph (what do you see in the image and what does it mean)? How has the photographer chosen to portray his story? What are the visual elements of the image (composition, objects/subjects within the pictorial frame? What are the photographers visual choices in the image (focus, distance, lighting, camera position etc)? What might be the social or cultural background of this image or is the image even political? How do you feel or react to this image when you see it? What is the story/meaning of the photograph?

William Henry Fox Talbot , An Oak Tree in Winter, 1842-1843, saltprint