Wedding Photograph by Alexander Petrosyan

This photograph was taken by a contemporary street photographer in Russia named Alexander Petrosyan. He was born in Ukraine in 1965 and began his career of professional photography in the year 2000. He has been living in Saint Petersburg for over 40 years and captures both the beautiful and grotesque aspects of life. He continues to this very day photographing the features of the city of Saint Petersburg and life of its inhabitants.

The photograph is untitled and there is no date corresponding to when it was taken. The photographer chose not to title the photograph because he believes there is no title that can express such a subjective emotional language. The studium in this photo is a couple posing and taking a wedding photo. The couple is positioned in a romantic pose kissing outside beside a green railing. There is a building in the background that exhibits Russian architecture, and the floor looks very wet as if they took the picture after a heavy downpour of rain.  Roland Barthes defines the term studium as “enthusiastic commitment” for a photo (Barthes 26). This means that I chose this photo because a wedding photo is something I enjoy to look at, but it does not go any deeper than that.  The simplistic concept of a wedding photo is the studium and is what sympathetically interested me, but did not “animate” me.

The man sitting right next to the posed couple may seem to be the entire punctum of the photo. However, the man’s black eye is the punctum to me because it generates intrigue and has the power to draw me into the photograph. The black eye is the small detail that made all the difference and made me want to work on the photo. The punctum in this photo really pierces into my memory and reminded me of the black eye my dad got accidentally after playing basketball. It aroused my curiosity and  provoked questions in my mind as to how he got the black eye? Did he get into a fight with people or did he accidentally run into a pole? The black eye led me to another feature in the man’s face which I consider to be the second punctum. The smile that the bearded man has on his face is the second punctum and made me question whether it was an accidental or planned detail. The man could have smiled because  he saw the happy couple and that happiness caused him to smile. However, after a closer examination of the man in the photo, I took note of the man’s eyes veering off to the left. He is looking at the photographer or “operator” as Barthes terms it, and perhaps believes he is the “target” of this photo. This may explain why he seems to smile and face the camera instead of looking away. This photograph would have been any ordinary wedding photo I glossed over, but the man’s unexplained facial features is what shoots out to me like an arrow, and grabs my attention.