As language, images could organize, tell, record and reproduce the life. However, images could inject new connotations rather than simply making objective displays. The arrangement of images, the formation of the subject and the art creation method are among the constant topics of discussion in the theory of visual arts. As a subject derived from linguistics, semiotics explores mankind communication, deals with symbolic structures, and embodies ideology. Nowadays, semiotics has had its influence penetrated into all areas of the modern society. For photography, images replace the role of texts, and the textual interpretation of the symbols refers to the in-depth understanding of texts through the superficial level of the images. As images have emerged as main media in daily life and for communication, rational and semiotic theory-based researches are necessary for studying them. Cindy Hwang, as a Korean-American visual artist born in South Korea, lived in Washington Metropolitan Area in her childhood and then moved to New York, her artistic works mainly explore the role of culture, life experience, tradition and modern elements in building individual and group identities. The Hybrid series is a photograph-and-text-based project that shows 19 families in New York and Beijing as well as “mixed-blood” children with various racial, ethnic group and cultural backgrounds in these families. Jiang Jian, as a Chinese documentary photographer who started his career since 1984, wins his reputation in Chinese photography with his environmental portrait series Householder, a series winning many famous domestic and foreign photography prizes. Both two photographers record families in Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds in their work series using a staged documentary method. This paper analyzes the similarity and difference between the Chinese photographer Jiang Jian and South Korean photographer Cindy Hwang based on the semiotics theory.