Semiotic Reading The Ideology of Photography: An Example Analysis of Annie Leibovitz's Portrait Photos of “The First Ladies”

The medium of photography, which has been seen as “a representation of reality” since its inception, contains political and ideological codes explicitly or implicitly and therefore needs to be analyzed. Semiotic analysis is one of the most frequently used methods in the reading and criticism of photography. However, in semiotic readings, the visual codes inside the frame are mostly read. However, the impact, power and consistency of photo readings in which the codes outside the frame and the context are included in the analysis are much higher. In this study, it is aimed to apply a semiotic reading of photographs in which the context is also included in the analysis. For this purpose, while reading the photographs, facts such as the position of the photographer, the interventions made during the processing of the photograph, the news published at the time about the people photographed, and the photographer's communication with the people photographed were taken into consideration as well as what is seen in the photograph. In this study, four portraits of women who were awarded the title of “First Lady” in different periods of the USA, taken by the famous American portrait and fashion photographer Annie Leibovitz, were analyzed. In these photographs, it is thought that photographer Annie Leibovitz exhibits a political stance beyond aestheticization in the images she designed. These portrait photographs taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz with her unique fictional style were evaluated with Barthes' plain meaning/meaning approach and the ideological approach of the photographer was tried to be revealed by analyzing the visual codes. Thus, it is aimed to make a sample reading on the ideological meanings carried not only by documentary/news photographs but also by fictional photographs. The importance of this study lies in the fact that it contributes to the literature on the ideological reading of photography and that it is a study involving the application of semiotic reading, which is one of the most basic analysis methods regarding the practice of reading photography.