For the first part of the assignment, I was asked to obtain 3 random images. I then had to ask a range of people to construct a story using the provided images, I asked people to keep the stories brief and the pictures could be used in any order.
The images I used are the last 3 above.
Here are a few example of the stories that people came up with using the images I gave them, I also took note of their ages, gender and occupation -
Gender: F
Age: 22
Occupation: Journalism student - Edinburgh Napier University
Three bears were totally bored one day, so decided to get off their rock and go somewhere beyond fun. They ended up at the beach. Yet, because they were bears the human people were scared of them. So they got captured and locked up in a room. Poor bears!
Gender: M
Age: 21
Occupation: Shop Assistant, graduate in Media.
After endless hours of staring through the hole in the three bears realised they were actually outside looking in. They were cold and hungry on the outside and could see goldilocks eating and sunbathing through the hole. If only they could get in they’d teach her for eating their breakfast!
Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Receptionist and Textile Design student
There was a family of bears stuck in the zoo, when they looked through the barred window of their enclosure they could see the sea and dreamed of being free and swimming in it.
Gender: F
Age: 21
Occupation: Media, Culture and Society student- Dundee University
'The bears are encaged and isolated within a cage which is meant to provide them with security from the wild(pic 1), Through the iron bars they see potential dreams of freedom to live outside their current environment (pic 3). However, the iron bars both metaphorically and physically represent that they will not be free unless they go beyond the metal bars(pic 2).
Gender: M
Age: 24
Occupation: Sales Assistant
The bears were glad in the end. Although they sat, bored and sleepy they were ultimately glad that the wall at the far end of the enclosure was so tall. It was tall enough to keep out the shimmering blue sea which, the previous night, had threatened to sweep them all out to their death! At least with the window in place, they could still see the fantastic horizon.
Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Geography student - Dundee University and Sales Assistant
Daddy bear, mummy bear and baby bear longed for freedom. Their zoo was small and people pointed and stared at them everyday. One day they combined their bear brains and climbed out of the little window in their pen. the bears had always loved the sea, after just one bus trip they were soon on course for Brazil in a little yacht and off to see their bear friends abroad.
Fot the second part of the assignment I was asked to select one of the stories and add a forth image that related to that story. I picked the story I thought was most realistic as alot of the stories I got back were quite silly! The story I chose was-
There was a family of bears stuck in the zoo, when they looked through the barred window of their enclosure they could see the sea and dreamed of being free and swimming in it.
This was to be my 'target' story and the forth image should try to help people get a similar story. The forth image I chose was the one of someone swimming (first image above) as the story mentioned that the bears wanted to swim in the sea.
I asked a new set of people to make up a story with the addition of the forth image using the same procedure as before -
Gender: M
Age: 23
Occupation: IT Engineer
A woman was swimming in the sea, she was caught up in the current and eventually washed up on shore. curious, she approached the nearest building and peered through the window, where she saw a family of bears.
Gender: M
Age: 27
Occupation: Store Manager
I was on my holidays when i looked out of the window into the sea, it was a cold October morning, and you could see the frost in the distance you could see 2 polar bears lying on the shore to the side, and there were people swimming in the sea, even though it was freezing
Gender: M
Age: 20
Occupation: Animation student - Dundee University
While Barry struck a pose of grandeur for the audiences, Bert and Brian really could not be bothered with the incessant crowds at the zoo and decided to look at the square TV that the zoo keepers had installed onto the wall. “Seawatch” was on.
The program detailed that a giant crocodile had already claimed several small, white, boats on the horizon in the previous weeks indiscriminately. They were immediately distracted, however, by a woman falling sideways over the barrier and into their drinking pond.
It seems that adding the image of the swimmer did not help in getting people close to the target story as the actual swimmer was focused on rather than the actual act of swimming and this related to the human rather than the bears. The bears were no longer the main focus of the story in most of them like they was in the first set. Although one person did still seem to include the bears in an enclosure type scenario in thier story, it still wasnt very close to the target story.
For the next part of the assignment I put the photos in order and also added a word to each to see if this might help people get closer tothe target story. I added "family" to the picture of the bears, "enclosure" to the picture of the barred window, "free" to the picture of the sea view and "swimming" to the forth image. These are the 3rd set of stories I recieved after making these changes -
Gender: F
Age: 22
Occupation: Textiles student - Dundee University
A family of large bears were kept in a small enclosure and longed to be set free so they can swim away from their torture.
Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Shop Assistant
A family of bears were stuck in an enclosure and were then taken to the seaside and set free and they swam away to a free life.
Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Textiles student
A family of bears were enclosed in a small area, they were then released and went swimming.
Gender: F
Age: 20
Occupation: Shop Assistant
A family who are at a zoo appear to be looking at a family of animals who are kept in enclosures. The family kidnap some water animals and went swimming with them.
As you can see adding the words definitly helped people get closer to the target stort. 3 out of 4 of the stories in this part of the assignment were loosely similar to the target. Adding text cleary had an effect as people used the words and focused on them probably even more so than the images themselves.
Although I still find the Barthes essay quite confusing I think I understand what he is saying about the linguistic messaage and how the addition of text to an image can alter a persons perception of what the image is portraying. When text is added it restricts a persons thinking and the thoughts on the image become much more focused. Especially in advertising which is closely related to my discipline, its as if we are being told how to percieve it rather than having free reign to do so.
As a graphic designer I feel it is important to consider exactly what message you are trying to get across to the viewer, its important to consider how a wide range of people might interpret an image rather than getting caught up in your own interpretations. I had my own instant idea of how the story would go using these pictures and words and it was so interesting to see how completely diffent some other people read them. I would have liked to ask a wider range of people from different ages and occupations to see how that might affect my results, but due to time restictions I stuck to people I know.
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