When viewing the Sternberger exhibit, I noticed that at first glance his photographs seem to capture a kind of essence of his subjects. This was something unique, in most posed photographs I feel like people look painfully modeled, often appearing completely different from how I imagine them in my mind. Of course this raises a question when it comes to people whom I only see in the form of photographs. Public figures like celebrities and politicians who I have never seen in real life, I only can imagine them they way they are posed in photographs. The way that Sternberger’s photographs were slightly blurry and not always framed in the most mathematically pleasing way made them seem raw and real. I feel like the photographs of children that Sternberger took that were featured in the exhibit best exemplified Barthes ideas of studium and punctum, and further, more of this ideas about the arbitrarily of posed photography. On the topic of photographing children Sternberger said, “[The photographer] must have patience and more patience to capture the complete absorption of a baby in the perpetual miracle of its physical ego; the awkward balancing of a toddler, a boy’s aggressive vitality, or the innate coquetry of a little girl.” I think this is a perfect example of how photographs simply can not capture the totality of a person. Sternberger is suggesting a) that a young person has already assumed a sexual or aggressive identity, b) that the extent to which a child is thinking ends at their physicality, and that these qualities can be encapsulated in a photograph. It’s ridiculous to think that children do not think further thoughts about the world, themselves, and ideas more complex than gender roles and their own bodies. Barthes’s concepts of studium, something that creates interest in an image and conveys an idea, and punctum, a detail that attracts an individual to a photograph by sparking something personal operate in many of Sternberger’s photographs. They are what make them interesting.
In one of his photographs of a Belgian princess, she is seen glaring into the camera with a handful of cherries to her mouth. She is about seven years old, but you can see how she is completely being seen through the eyes of an older man who believes that she is exuding an “innate coquetry.” It’s despicable to think of how the outcome of a portrait is entirely dependent on the eye of the photographer. It is indeed possible that you could be photographed and not a bit of you could come through in that picture. I think that Sternberger uses studium excessively to draw viewers into his photos. Each of them have a little quirk that makes them quite interesting to look at. Punctum on the other hand is individual, for me most of his photos did also include punctum. Photos like the one of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and their dog felt really personal to me, like I could imagine visiting them at their house- seeing them in their most personal setting. The one of the Belgian princess also elicited a sharp feeling for me, I could see this sensual gaze that Sternberger was projecting onto the young girl and it made me deeply uncomfortable. Viewing this exhibit and reading Barthes has settled me deeper into an opinion on photography, especially portraiture, that I already held- one can not be fully represented in their physical form, especially not when that form has been manipulated by an “artist” who might hardly know the subject. Photography might seem like a deeply personal art, but I think it is often the opposite, the photographer is allowed to see things that appeal to their aesthetic, often without fully understanding the thing they are photographing and can capture it without any repercussions or investments in it. Of course there are quite a few exceptions to this rule, but I think that this is often the case, especially in a world where we all have high quality cameras in our pockets.
I agree with your opinion of photography in general, in that a subject can’t be completely accurately represented by the photographer for lack of information or whatever reason, but I don’t agree in terms of Sternberger. I think the quote about capturing a boy’s aggressiveness or a girl’s coquetry just means that he tries to capture the small nuances of a person’s nature, not that he’s assuming and projecting things about people’s personalities.
I want to begin by saying that the idea you presented about how natural Sterngerger’s photos are also struck me as odd and almost comforting. People aren’t what we see through a lens, which allows me to believe that photography is more so about perspective than anything else. We can choose how we arrange something and how we display it. While things like using children as models is not necessarily a bad thing, it is definitely depending on the photographer and how he arranged them…so I agree with you being uncomfortable by his photos of kids.