Genre

Genre is a way of categorising a style of something. Within genre, there are codes and conventions. The codes and conventions of something define what category the product comes under. For example, within film, there are various different genres which allow the audience to decide what style of film they want to watch. When the produces choose to make a film, they must be aware of the genre in which they are producing the film so that they can include the codes and conventions of the desired genre.

Therefore, within other media texts such as photography or new media, there are different genres in which they must follow in order to succeed in categorising their purpose. For example, in fashion photography, there are codes and conventions which allow the audience to immediately understand the concept of the photo being produced. This may include, bright lighting, colours, a specific pose, the centre of interest being what the designer wishes to portray in the shot, where as a portrait photo would have different conventions which would allow the audience to tell the difference between the two. For example, in a portrait photo, the person must have eye contact with the camera; it must be able to tell the audience about the person without actually telling them. David La Chappelle is a contemporary photographer who has a very distinctive style to his photography. He creates contemporary portrait photos for celebrities and his work follows a style to which the audience is able to immediately tell it has been produced by him. This is through use of bright colours, props including religious ornaments and controversial items. His images tend to be quite sexualised and contemporary. Although they are portrait photos, his work also includes fashion photography. For example, Katy Perry modelled for GHD straighteners and David La Chappelle took the photos for this advertisement. He included his same conventions within the photo because they were similar to that off a fashion photo shoot.

 

“Genre’s do not only change because society changes, they also evolve as distinct entities…” [Lacey, N, 1998 London;p142]

 

“so, we should add to the above definition, that genres, although they consist of recognisable elements, are dynamic” [Long, P and Wall, T, 2012;p74]

 

This quote taken from Nick Lacey’s book of Genre and narrative tells me about the way in which genre can change. Within New Media and Photography however, new genre ideas have developed. For example, the genre of social networking in comparison to dating websites. They both include the same concepts of having an online profile where one can communicate with another but they are both defined in different ways due to the overall purpose of what they have been created for. Twitter was created to allow the user to communicate with other people, companies and be updated on news, celebrity gossip etc and also to promote businesses where as a dating site was created for people who are looking for a relationship with someone else but they all follow the same key codes and conventions with differences made to suit the original purpose.

 

Lacey, N (1998). Image and Representation. London: Macmillin Press LTD. 142.

 

Paul Long Tim Wall (2012). Media Studies, Text, Production, Context. 2nd ed. Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited. 74.