'The Photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been.' Discuss

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'The Photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been.'

There are numerous avenues of photographic practice which attempt to portray and exhibit the subject of death and transition. From the Memento Mori (from the Latin 'remember you will die' or 'remember your mortality') which exists as a concept across several artistic disciplines (as well as photography), to the post-mortem photographic movement, in which the articulation of death and mortality is put across in a photographic art form, both of which are established and often overt (Martin, 1993). Particularly in popular culture the concepts of mortality and transition are purveyed frequently and the scopic regime of fashion photography has been largely dominated by dramatic and sensational imagery of death and transitory evolution for many years. As Barthes asserts:

"The fashion photograph is not just any photograph, it bears little relationship to the news photograph or the snapshot, for example; it has its own units and rules; within photographic communication, it forms a specific language" (Barthes, 1967)

For one to accurately interpret the quote 'the photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only