The Spoken Image addresses the question of how the photograph communicates its message, with or without the aid of language. The author discusses single and "compound" photographs (such as David Hockney's) showing differences in the ways they convey ideas. He looks at the work of filmmakers such as Antonioni and Greenaway to contrast filmic methods of narration with those of photography. He considers the magazine photo-story as well as the photo-essay, with examples from the work of John Berger and Jean Mohr, and discusses the post-modern photo-sequence as employed by artists like Victor Burgin. Finally, Scott examines how cohesion and coherence are achieved in photographic narratives, and concludes that photography has arrived at a level of communicative sophistication equal to, and often in conjunction with, that of modern textual narratives.

This book will be indispensable reading for media studies, cultural studies, and photographic and visual studies courses, and for all readers exploring the interface between the visual and the textual.