1) “But very often (too often, to my taste) I have been photographed and knew it. Now, once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of ‘posing,’ I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image. This transformation is an active one: I feel that the Photograph creates my body or mortifies it, according to its caprice…” (Barthes 10-11).
This generation can definitely relate to this remark about the camera because we have so much experience with it. Everything needs to go on Snapchat and Instagram, and as soon as the camera faces us, we have to have a certain pose. This can relate to Barthes’ ideas on page 13 where he says that in front of the lens, you are three different personalities: you are the one you think you are, the one the photographer thinks you are, and the one he makes you to exhibit his art. This produces inauthenticity, just like social media produces inauthenticity and an illusion that does not really reflect what is going on in the real world. This passage is an important one for our generation because it accurately reflects our daily behavior.
2) “For I often dream about her (I dream only about her), but it is never quite my mother: sometimes, in the dream, there is something misplaced, something excessive: for example, something playful or casual-which she never was; or again I know it is she, but I do not see her features (but do we see, in dreams, or do we know?): I dream about her, I do not dream her” (Barthes 66).
Barthes spends the beginning of Part Two talking about his mom and the reader can see that she holds a special place in his heart. He states, “I dream about her, I do not dream her.” This really hit me because he is not able to dream his mom since he does not know exactly what she looks like. This brings us back to the idea of the photograph and its inauthenticity. Is he not able to dream her because the pictures he looks at are inauthentic or do not provide an accurate representation of his mom? Is it because of her “posing”? Is a picture really worth a thousand words if it cannot give us an accurate representation of something? I thought this passage emotionally appealed to the reader to show them the limitations of pictures and their worth of a thousand words.
3) Barthes states on page 20, “suddenly a specific photograph…it animates me, and I animate it…but it animates me: this is what creates every adventure.” What exactly is he talking about here? How does the picture “animate” or “capture” him and how does he “animate” or “contribute” to the picture? How does the interaction between a photograph and its viewer create a sense of “adventure”?
4) My picture is not being uploaded for some reason.
I strongly agree with you about nowadays when people see cameras, they instinctively “pose” to be appealing to the photograph. The photographer does not show the realistic side of you but as a matter of fact an artwork they create. They make you “look good” but totally disregard what is real. Now photographs just show how the subject looks and not the representation of who they are.
The first passage is extremely relevant in our current generation, which made it very relatable. Throughout the times, photography continues to promote inauthenticity and various poses to express a side of oneself to be shown to others. In the second chosen passage, I like the use of the cliché phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” then challenging it. I agree with the idea that the inauthenticity present in photograph downplays the powerful impact the phrase claims that photos have.