Advertising and photography: rhetoric and representation

The essay argues that documentary and rhetorical functions of photography are present in all photographs. Thus to every advertising, or rhetorical photograph there is a documentary element. And to every documentary photograph, there is a rhetorical element. This argument is constructed by following Derrida and showing how the punctum (as found in the work of Roland Barthes) is actually not a point and that because it is not a point, the documentary function is not the only function: culture and therefore persuasive and rhetorical elements can now ‘get in’ to the photograph.