ANALYZING A PHOTOGRAPH

Jarabina, 1963
Josef Koudelka
Czechoslovakian, born 1938

Gelatin-silver print

23.3 x 35.4cm
Circ.525-1976

© Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos

The photograph which attracts me most belongs to Josef Koudelka who is a Czechoslovakian artist. This photograph whose main subject is a dead body lying in the middle of a dark room is an example of documentary type photography. It gives us a view of a different society and their culture. In the photo we see a dead body lying and people who are standing next to her at each side. We also see a window which is the only part of the room light can pass, a gas lamp which shows us the poorness and a table which the dead body lies on. This scene is one of the pieces of my most frightened nightmare which is seeing one of my relatives’ dead body lying in front of me. That is why I felt weirdly frightened when I firstly saw the picture. However, the light which is coming from the window gives me hope and happiness by making me to think about the figure of God and the heaven. I think this photo is a very successful piece of art, due to the fact that it both makes the audience feel frightened and hopeful at the same moment.

One of the aims of the photographer is to catch the attentions to the white dead body which is surrounded by the frightening darkness and he achieves that successfully via using the light. The window is the only part of the room which light can get in. The totally dark part of the room symbolizes the low life standards of those people and the hard life the dead woman lived. On the other hand, by using the light, the photographer takes the audience’s attention to the dead body which is reflecting the light and is totally white. The moment which the photographer catches is a long one. Seeing funerals usually gives people sorrow. They remember death. They feel sorry for the dead people and its family etc. That is why funerals are bad moments for us. However, this time something looks different. The death looks better than living. That is what push the audience to think. I guess the photographer tries to make us comparing; living in dark and dying in light. As doing this comparison the audience both feel afraid, sorrowful and hopeful at the same time. And the frame of the photo is also a black piece which completes the picture.

The photographer stands out of the photo, however he still catch the attentions of the small children. They look through the photographer instead of the dead body. One of the other things I noticed in this photo is the cultural similarities with our society. Just like in ours, they also visit the house of the dead person, but different in our society dead body is always covered with sheets when the visitors are in the house.

OTHER COMMENTS

Annalisa Barbieri

In Italy when people die it is very common that we lay out the dead and the family go and visit them, and I've always found it quite strange in England that people don't really do that, and the whole subject of death is frightening for people to talk about. This picture was taken in what was known as Czechoslovakia where they have quite a Mediterranean approach to when people die. Again this picture tells a very interesting story. You wonder who it is that's lying there and how they died. The thing that interests me though is that no one seems particularly grief-stricken, and so I wonder if the person there simply wasn't very popular, but the overall tone of the picture is very sombre and quite dark. I don't know if Koudelka meant any symbolism by it, but I notice the dead person is placed under the window and there is a lot of light shining on the dead person, which obviously makes me think of light and heaven and God and all those things, but I just love it because it's a subject that not many people would photograph.

Maud Sulter

A very still photograph. The stillness in some ways emanates from the people who are looking rather than the body in the coffin. It's a very frozen moment. Everybody seems very contemplative. This whole notion of death and representations of death is something that I am currently working on. I'm making a piece called 'My father's house' which uses footage from the three-day ceremony from my father's funeral, and it's very interesting, the difference in cultural perception around death and the laying out of the body.

Sixth form students

LASWAP Consortium

I think it's a very stunningly beautiful photograph, the way the people either side lead your eye in to the main subject which is this very white dead body. The people either side, it's almost as if the light lays on their faces, it just highlights their profiles. There are a few characters in the front that are quite interesting who are more concerned with the photographer than the dead body.

ABOUT THE COMMENTS

Besides the fact that both three comments are very similar, I think the Barbieri’s comment is the most similar comment with my analysis. She compares the cultures, visiting the dead person’s family etc,., talks about the hope which light supplies, heaven and God figures. Differently, she states that the dead woman was not very popular which is one the details I missed. I think her comment is the best one not because of the similarity with my comment but because of the cultural comparison she made and the unique way she thinks.