In Film Art, "meaning" is defined as an integral part of the overall system of the film. "... it may be useful to distinguish meanings as components within the film from the viewer's analysis of meanings, an activity usually called interpretation. This distinction will let us situate meaning within the overall system of an entire film." (34) It is important, in other words, to consider that particular meanings (or meaningful moments in a film) interact with other elements of the entire system to create a collection of important moments, rather than one singular meaning.
In Practices of Looking, "meaning" is looked at differently. It is defined by the social implications and reactions of the work of art and is not defined in the work itself. "Images generate meanings, yet the meanings of a work of art, a photograph, or a media do not, strictly speaking, lie in the work itself... Rather, meanings are produced through the complex negotiations that make up the social process and practices through which we produce and interpret images." (49) It is crucial to understand that meaning is not a part of the system of a work of art, but rather that it is generated through the interpretation of the audience.
In looking at the given photograph, the authors of each of these books would likely disagree on a fundamental level.
While both would presumably agree that the image has meaning, they might disagree on the origin and implications of its meaning. Film Art might argue that elements of the photograph (that being each of the subjects, the aesthetic values, etc.) are a collection of individually important parts that have relationships in the larger meaning of the work. Practices of Looking, on the other hand, might argue that the meaning of the photograph is largely the result of its relationship to society and the interpretations of it made by members of society.
BAG
