In traditional Australian Aboriginal art, the use of shapes and symbols was a way to record culturally significant stories and teachings about the land. Geometric shapes and their orientation to one another can express another type of symbolism. They’re objects of destruction, but they can also reference Cupid’s arrow and love,” adds Stoddard. Sometimes swords or arrows can have double meanings. While a crown can symbolize power and victory, a pen can represent diplomacy and stability. Objects can evoke a wide range of emotions and ideas. Water can symbolize power and wisdom, while fire can represent everything from passion to destruction to rebirth. And each of those has a different meaning,” says Stoddard. “I use a lot of nature, like fire, water, earth, and plant life in my photos. Consider how you arrange objects together in a composition to create new, deeper meanings.ĭifferent plants, animals, and elements have their own symbolic meanings. This can represent the passage of time or the fleeting nature of life. You’ll often see still lifes with bright, healthy flowers paired with a skull. In addition to the classic skull, items like ravens, vultures, hourglasses, and clocks can also symbolize death in art. But in more Western cultures, white is the symbol for a wedding dress because that can represent purity,” says Johnson. With wedding dresses, for example, in some cultures, people wear black to weddings because that color represents fidelity, marriage, and love. “I like learning how different cultures look at different things. For example, red represents passion and love in North America, grief and death in some African cultures, and fertility and luck in China. Different colors evoke strong feelings, and each hue has its own meaning around the world, so don’t assume your audience will share your associations with a particular color. Explore these different symbols and their meanings in visual art.Ĭolor is a great way to experiment with symbolic photography, since it’s versatile and accessible.
While every person and culture interprets symbols and archetypes differently, that can be part of the fun. And it spans different cultures and time periods,” says Stoddard. “I like to reference art that has withstood the test of time, because it obviously hits a chord with people. “I tend to gravitate toward those elements because they’re timeless.” If you’ve seen a painting that uses a skull to symbolize death, then you’ve seen a classic memento mori piece, which uses skeletal remains to touch on the subject of mortality.Īnd you can use those same symbols in your modern fine art photography.
“There are many recognizable symbols that you can find throughout classical art, especially in the Renaissance period and the Baroque period,” says Stoddard. Symbolism is a strong, versatile tool that you can use across all fields of photography. If that same food is photographed on paper plates, it tells a very different story about the recipe. In food photography, if you serve food on fine china, it can symbolize elegance and the upper class. In portraiture, photographing someone in front of a piano implies that the subject is musical, artistic, and creative.
Symbolism can help your photo tell a story. And sometimes it’s wildly different from what I intended,” explains photographer Alex Stoddard. “What I love about social media is that when I share my images online, I’ll often get people from different cultures writing in and telling me what their interpretation of the photo is. Plus, new symbols gain traction and significance online and through pop culture. In fact, most symbols vary in meaning across cultures and countries, and some change in meaning over time. But keep in mind that not everyone interprets symbols in the same way. “I think it’s really all about an object that has some sort of deeper meaning,” says photographer Lauren Johnson.Ī symbolic image is meant to be easily understood, so be thoughtful with the elements you incorporate. Similar to conceptual photography and surrealism, symbolic photography uses objects, colors, and themes to convey specific ideas and intentionally evoke emotions.
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