***Contains Nudity & Images of Slavery

Photography is a dynamic representational system that uses signs to produce and communicate meaning-just as we do when we use words to speak. According to the Swiss linguist Sausserre, a sign has two elements, that ofsignifier and the signified-with signifier representing the form (in our case photographs) and the signified representing the associated conceptual understanding provoked by viewing a photograph-or its meaning (Hall, 1997, p. 31). For meaning to be constructed, these two elements must exist in relation. Hall notes that it is the relationship between form and meaning that is “fixed by our cultural and linguistic codes, which [in turn] sustains representation” (p. 31).

From this perspective then, photographs are culturally situated and consequently convey different meanings to different viewers based on personal life experiences, knowledge, and perspectives. Photographs, like words, are both encoded and decoded with meaning. The creator first encodes a photograph with meaning or intention when she takes the photograph, and then “it is further encoded when it is placed in a given setting or context” (Sturken & Cartwright, 2003, p. 56). For example, as photographs are viewed, reviewers decode or “read” the meaning. The “reading” of photographs therefore is subjective and partial (Skinningsrud as cited in Edwards, 1992, p. 4; Winston, 1998) and naturally leads to a range of interpretations. Such a variety of interpretations are a positive aspect of photography as a language of teacher inquiry because it is through sharing diverse meanings that new understandings are co-constructed.

The relationship between the signifier and the signified, the idea that photographs are culturally situated, and the co-constructive process whereby interpretive meanings are the result of subjective encoding and decoding are illustrated in the following example of a group of early childhood teacher researchers who collectively explored visual literacy. In a recent research project, the Reggio-Lugano Research Collaborative (RLRC) used photographs as a research tool to discover the capacity of visual images to uncover, provoke, and communicate beliefs and practices related to teaching and learning (Fu, Goldhaber, Tegano, & Stremmel, 2000). This multi-member collaborative was composed of teacher educators and teacher practitioners who spent nearly two years systematically reflecting on selected photographs of each participant’s early childhood program in order to answer the question: “How does an interpretative community find meaning in the visual images selected to represent our adaptations of the Reggio Emilia approach?” In the analyses of the data collected in this project, one finding included the participants’ discussions and questions concerning the context of the photographs: Whose story was being told-the subject’s story, the photographer’s story, the viewer’s story, or all three?