Part One
“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 to advance into an image. This transformation is an active one: I feel that the Photograph creates my body or mortifies it,” (10-11)
This passage begins Barthes’ explanation of the importance of the target in photography. This part stood out to me as he explains rather clearly (surprisingly so), the effect of a camera on a standing target. The person in the photo loses their natural state and turns rigid as Barthes describes. I understood this as I have always had trouble smiling “naturally” for the camera. This is important to Barthes’ exploration of photography as this adds to the idea that photography is missing an element of real life. Additionally, this adds to the theme of “death” in photography. Barthes refers back to photography adding a “mortifying” aspect, hence an important part to his argument.
Part Two
“I studied the little girl and at last rediscovered my mother. The distinctness of her face, the naive attitude of her hands, the place she had docielely taken without either showing or hiding herself … all this constituted the figure of a sovereign innocence … the assertion of a gentleness. (69)
Before this passage, Barthes spends a few pages discussing his journey of searching for the perfect photograph of his mother. He looked through everything he could find but each photo seemed off, it didn’t seem to capture his mother as he remembered her. The features might have been vaguely familiar but the emotional aspect given off to Barthes made his mother in the photos he found unrecognizable to him. This passage stood out to me because it was a heartfelt moment where Barthes finally found the photograph he was looking for. Interestingly enough, it was a photo of his mother as a child, way before he was born. So while he doesn’t fully recognize the features of this girl at first, the other non-visual features lead his senses. Specifically, the photograph emanates his mother’s kindness, something that Barthes’ cherishes. This passage helped me understand what Barthes is searching for in a photograph or what in general he is referring to throughout the book.
Is there a way to immortalize ourselves through a photograph?
Does that image change depending on who is viewing it?
Axel,
I think the quotes that you picked are essential to dissecting this difficult book! I also picked a quote related to death as a result of photography. I think it’s interesting that Barthes claims this since we always want photographs to look natural and keep a memory alive, as opposed to kill the essence of the subject. I liked how you personally reacted to the quote when you agree how difficult it is to “act natural” in front of the lens. When coming across your second quote in my reading, I also found it interesting how Barthes chose a photograph of his mother as a kid as “the perfect photograph,” even though he wasn’t alive to see this version of her. This also sparks questions of time and history and how viewers see photographs differently if the subject is not longer living.
I think there is so much to discuss with the quotes that you chose and they will certainly generate interesting conversation in class!
-Julia
Axel,
I totally agree with what you stated about part one and two of the book, in that Roland Barthes was searching for signs of life in photography. It is true that photography can capture the subject with a certain amount of true details to it, but this trueness also indicates that photographies are false too. What photographies cannot capture is the “essence” of the subject, something that was proven when Barthes was studying his mother’s photographies. Hence, photographies is not something frozen in time but an attempt to share a “dream” in our reality. It also depends on the photographer and the people looking at the photographies. We each determine a different meaning to the same or different subject(s) in a photography.
The passage you selected from part one of the book is very interesting. It previously had never dawned upon me the effect that a camera has on me (or anyone really), until this passage and your explanation. It’s rather simple for humans to smile when they are happy; however, whenever the smile is being forced by a camera, it becomes extremely difficult to exert a smile with the same radiance as a natural one. Moreover, humans oftentimes tense up during photographs because trying to look natural has the inverse effect of making us look unnatural. This is a very important idea and one that we should examine further. The second passage that you chose is also an extremely important idea in the book. It’s interesting to see how Barthes had never really felt an emotional connection to a picture of his mother until seeing a picture of her in her youth. Although Barthes had never seen his mother when she was a child, he immediately felt a connection to the piece due to its emotional aspect—it shows his mother’s kindness. Great work with the analyses!