Selecting an image a point of reference for
another object by physical connection
In theorising about the differences among the sign
types- symbol, icon and index- C.S. Peirce distinguishes
photographs from icons even though icons (signs which establish
meaning through the effect of resemblance) form a class to which we
would suppose photographs belong.
“Photographs”, Peirce says,
“especially instantaneous photographs, are very instructive,
because we know that they are in certain respects exactly like the
objects they represent. But this resemblance is due to the
photographs having been produced under such circumstances that they
were physically forced to correspond point by point to
nature. In that aspect, then, they belong to the second class
of signs (indices), that point to a physical connection with a
particular historical juxtaposition of people and place”.
The work of the Victorian prize-winning
photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe provides examples of both
indices and icons. The latter are outdoor group portraits of
the local people of Whitby and its surrounding district.
Mainly to produce a genre effect, but also because of the slow
exposure values of his photographic emulsion, Sutcliffe posed his
subjects ‘unnaturally’ to produce a balanced
picture. His artifice in composition as never been
surpassed.
