After visiting Raghubir Singh’s exhibit of post-colonial Indian life, I was able to answer the question Susan Sontag poses. She reflects on the idea of whether photographs merely “capture reality” or whether they interpret it. After viewing the wide range of photographs Raghubir Singh provided in his exhibit, I definitely believe that photographs capture reality as well as interpret it.
First, the photo of the young boy by the bus stop definitely caught my attention. The first thing I noticed about the photo was the heavy, dreary dark- almost black sky. The color of the sky related to the emotion on the boy’s face. He is not standing with the groups of people in the back, but rather Singh pulls in all the attention on this one boy. Standing amongst rubble on the street, he boy poses a blank kind of look, but yet a knowing one as well. He knows a storm is about to come, and to him, I assume his biggest concern is getting home. When young children are exposed to poverty, they do not necessarily know it. Raghubir Singh captured this idea perfectly through this photo and many others in his exhibit. Children living in poverty filled countries do not necessarily know it. They know life to be this way and do not know that it is uncommon. They face hardships on the daily and eventually, some, get rewarded with a new life. Not all. The facial expression on the boy’s face, in my opinion, is just taking everything in. Accepting the kind of state his country is in because he doesn’t know any better.
The second photograph that captivated me was the “Crawford market, Mumbair, Maharashtra” one. In this photo, there is so much commotion going on. Commotion is the perfect word to describe the overall state of the country post-colonial life. Everyone and everything was moving a mile a minute. IN this photograph, there are a numerous amount of men all surrounding and getting by this one man. He simply is paused, in the market, to drink some water. Even though the country was in a chaotic state, it was like Raghubir Singh captured a moment of peace during this man’s life. He seems unbothered, and content.
I would not have been able to come to these conclusions and reflections without the ideas of punctum and studium. Now, every time I look at a photograph, those two concepts come to mind. At first, I look at the picture as a whole. But then, looking more closely at detail, I was able to grasp and understand the true meaning and importance of every photograph. Going back to Susan Sontag, I definitely believe that Raghubir was able to capture the reality of post-colonial India. I also think the photo is greatly interpreted because he captures live photos. They were not stage and truly depicted the challenges, accomplishments, and just daily life activities of the individuals living in India at the time period.
Karina Karazhbey
I really like how you drew from elements of the Barthes reading and applied it to such a unique exhibition. Your examples are so clearly detailed, and, in that, showcased quite clearly the messages that Singh was conveying. You did an amazing job describing that chaos and movement in the second photograph you explained and pointing out what the punctum and studium you interpreted. Overall, I think you did a really amazing job on taking in the ideas that Singh illustrating in his photographs. Great work!
Karina,
I find your experience with studium and punctum extremely relatable. Ever since learning about Barthe’s studium and punctum its given me an extra desire to look for that “prickling” detail as you did with the boy in the first photo that you mentioned. Additionally, you did a wonderful job describing the two pictures. Your descriptions allowed me to remember the pictures that i also enjoyed seeing at the exhibit.
Great work,
Andrew Langer
I like your comment about the young boy living in poverty. I agree that most kids don’t know they live in poverty because they don’t know anything else besides their own lives. With globalization and colonization, I think that when they get exposed to the economic state in which they actually are in. Without exposure to the outside world, a lot of them don’t know what kind of economic state they live in, and they just accept it like that.