http://www.zoom-in.com/media/graphics/blog/content/soprano_poster_season6B.jpg

Barthes would respond to this image from CNN by disassembling it into two categories: that which is actually in the picture and the myth which arises from examining the picture. “Every object in the world can pass from a closed, silent existence to an oral state, open to appreciation by society, for there is no law, whether natural or not, which forbids talking about things. A tree is a tree. Yes, of course. But a tree as expressed by Minou Drouet is no longer quite a tree, it is a tree which is decorated, adapted to a certain type of consummation, laden with literary self-indulgence, revolt, images, in short with a type of social usage which is added to pure matter.” Barthes would say that the image has speech, says something, isn't just a collection of objects and people framed from a particular vantage that all happened to be in the same place at the same time. The mere fact that the image was taken from CNN asserts this. It was most likely used to further illustrate events described within an article which, without the image, would have said far less.

It is possible to deduce the image's meaning by examining various cultural signifiers that existing therein. Principally, we have an Iraqi flag painted on to what remains of a recently destroyed wall. An American soldier peeks around the corner of the section of wall over a large automatic firearm. Beyond him there is rubble and what appears to be some kind of guard tower, abandoned. Further still there is a road with a single individual standing on it, and beyond that another wall. The denotative code here has to do with what the scene says to Westerners exposed to the Iraq war. Regardless of one's opinion of that war, several aspects of the image say the same thing. The photograph is definitely a view of the Middle East as seen through the photographic lens of the West, not the other way around. The lone soldier finds himself standing in something of a mess. Destruction is a major theme here, as is confusion. The soldier appears to have poked his head around one destroyed wall only to be confronted by another wall. There are no enemies in sight, just an enormous mess. The linguistic code here is quite interesting: the only text is the Soldier's name on his helmet. Unlike in most war photos the soldier is not anonymous, but rather the most familiar looking part of the frame. The other text is the writing which is part of the Iraqi flag; a national icon but incomprehensible to one who does not speak the language and has no prior knowledge of the country.

Barthes asserts that myth is primarily a semiological system. He also states that within any semiological system exists a relationship between a signifier and a signified. What exists in this image is a relationship between the aspects of the image itself and the culture which interprets them, which led to the creation of the image itself. However it is not so simple as that. “Take a bunch of roses: I use it to signify my passion. Do we have here, then, only a signifier and a signified, the roses and my passion? Not even that: to put it accurately, there are here only 'passionified' roses. But on the plane of analysis, we do have three terms; for these roses weighted with passion perfectly and correctly allow themselves to be decomposed into roses and passion: the former and the latter existed before uniting and forming this third object, which is the sign. It is as true to say that on the plane of experience I cannot dissociate the roses from the message they carry, as to say that on the plane of analysis I cannot confuse the roses as signifier and the roses as sign: the signifier is empty, the sign is full, it is a meaning.” The same applies to the image here. The image is essentially as mentioned above just a collection of objects and people viewed from a particular angle which all happened to be in the same place at the same time long enough for a photographer to capture it. However, the purpose of capturing the image exists within the image but also existed before the image. Like the roses, the image can be separated into the image of the soldier itself and its cultural connotations. The image and its meaning are at the same time inseparable, because in many ways the image is its meaning, and certainly would not exist without it.