Category: BLOG POST 4 (Page 2 of 2)

1.   “This fatality (no photograph without something or someone) involves Photography in the vast disorder of objects– of all the objects in the world: who choose (why photograph) this object, this moment, rather than some other? Photography is unclassifiable because there is no reason to mark this or that of its occurrences; it aspires, perhaps, to become as crude, as certain, as noble as a sign which would afford it access to the dignity of a language; but for there to be a sign there must be a mark; deprived of a principle of marking, photographs are signs which don’t take, which turn, as mild does. Whatever it grants to vision and whatever its manner, a photograph is always invisible; it is not it that we see.” (Barthes 6)

Essentially, this paragraph discusses why we take a picture of something. Out of everything in the world you could have taken a picture of, why did you choose this? Barthes then goes on to say how each picture is really a sign, or a mark, of what is actually occurring. Therefore, the physical picture is actually invisible, but its content portrays reality. The passage helped me understand Barthes argument and gave me insight into the true meaning and use of a picture.

      2.    “Something like an essence of the Photograph floated in this particular picture. I therefore decided to “derive” all Photography (its “nature”) from the only photography which assuredly existed for me, and to take it somehow as a guide for my last investigation. All the world’s photographs formed a Labyrinth. I knew that at the center of this Labyrinth I would find nothing but this sole picture, fulfilling Nietzsche’s prophecy: “A labyrinthine man never seeks the truth, but only his Ariadne.” The Winter Garden Photograph was my Ariadne, not because it would help me discover a secret thing (monster or treasure), but because it would tell me what constituted that thread which drew me toward Photography. I had understood that henceforth I must interrogate the evidence of Photography, not from the viewpoint of pleasure, but in relation to what we romantically call love and death. (I cannot reproduce the Winter Garden Photograph. It exists only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture, one of the thousand manifestations of the “ordinary”; it cannot in any way constitute the visible object of a science; it cannot establish an objectivity, in the positive sense of the term; at most it would interest your studium: period, clothes, photogeny; but in it, for you, no wound.)”

This was such an interesting part of Camera Lucida to me because it illustrates how one picture has a profoundly different effect on unique individual. For barthes, the Winter Garden Photograph meant so much to him, while it could mean nothing to anyone else. However, they might have a different photograph that means something to them. This speaks to the uniqueness of each individual and the effect of photography of their lives.

3. How is it possible that such an old picture (the subject is not even alive anymore) seems so real and alive?

4.

On page 5 Barthes states, “A specific photograph, in effect, is never distinguished from its referent (from what it represents), or at least it is not immediately or generally distinguished from its referent…It is as if the Photograph always carries its referent with itself.” This passage presents the leading idea for the entire book and provides the lens through which Barthes views and understands photography (and wants the readers to view and understand photography). To put it simply, Barthes is saying that photographs and the objects depicted/subjects are inherently tied to one another; they are unextractable. Photographs, according to Barthes, will never function as separate entities, never viewed as in and of themselves, but as proof or evidence of the subject.

On page 115 Barthes states, “…with the Photograph, my certainty is immediate: no one in the world can undeceive me. The Photograph then becomes a bizarre medium, a new form of hallucination: false on the level of perception, true on the level of time: a temporal hallucination, so to speak, a modest shared hallucination (on the one hand “it is not there,” on the other “but it has indeed been”)…” This passage serves as the conclusion of the book and thus serves as Barthes’ final reflection on photography and its noeme (as he calls it). It perfectly summarizes what all the previous discussions and musings about the photographs have been attempting to explain. Photography is a “bizarre medium”; it is an “uncertain art” that exists in a strange, unclassifiable middle ground. Barthes, essentially, is positing that the Photograph exists in a universe all its own; the images and objects depicted in photographs are not there in front of us but they were, at some point in time, in front of someone. Photographs are evidential and are proof that their subjects did exist in that state, even if they no longer do.

How do the advent of photoshopping and the increased use of apps like VSCO and Facetune fit into Barthes’ reflections on photography?

In Camera Lucida, the author, Roland Barthes, seeks to discover another meaning in photography. Barthes seeks to break down the art of photography to find something inside of it that doesn’t make photography plain. What captivated me was when he tried to explain the three players of photography in Chapter 4 of Part One on page 9, “Operator, Spectrum, and Spectator”. He clearly stated that photography consist of the photographer, the people looking at the photography, and the thing or person being photographed. The photographer must use his or her own “emotion” to take their type of photographs. Roland, on the other hand, never experienced this kind of emotion but rather only possesses two experiences: “ that of the observed subject and that of the subject observing…”.Yet, Roland Barthes also claimed that the spectrum of the photograph has a “rather terrible thing” which is the “return of the dead”. I am not sure by what is returning and how is the thing that is returning from the dead a terrible thing. I also question why Roland Barthes thinks he is different from other photographers. Is it just because he thinks of photography differently?

In Part Two, Roland Barthes began to talk about photography through his deceased mother. In Chapter 27 pages 65 to 67, “To Recognize”, Barthes explicitly stated that he missed his mother and never really could find her even in her photographs. Even though he admitted that the “brightness of her eyes” was “reserved” and “preserved”, yet he also claimed that he could not find her. I understand that he cannot bring himself to believe that his mother still exists in those old photographs. Roland Barthes compared these “false” images to a dream where things we dreamed of being “almost” within our grasp, which is why we tend to be disappointed. This comparison illustrates the deep grief that Barthes feels for the loss of his mother and how much he misses the real her. What I am puzzled about is why does he affirm that photographs do not have the same features as his mother. He seems troubled to find the “essential identity” of his mother and so I wanted to ask what is the “essential identity” of his mother that the photography lacks.

My question for this class is: why can’t we classify photography or photographs even though we rely on the object that is being photographed?

I chose this photo because I took it to capture a variety of details, hence, which one is the subject? The people, the trees, the hut, or the towering skyscrapers? 

“Since the Photograph is pure contingency and can be nothing else (it is always something that is represented) -contrary to the text which, by the sudden action of a single word, can shift a sentence from description to reflection- it immediately yields up those  “details” which constitute the very raw material of ethnological knowledge. When William Klein, photographs “Mayday, 1959” in Moscow, he teaches me how Russians dress (which after all I don’t know): I note a boy’s big cloth cap, another’s necktie, an old woman’s scarf around her head, a youth’s haircut, etc. I can enter still further into such details, observing that many of the men photographed by Nadar have long fingernails: an ethnographical question: how long were nails worn in a certain period? Photography can tell me this much better than painted portraits. It allows me to accede to an infra-knowledge; it supplies me with a collection of partial objects and can flatter a certain fetishism of mine: for this “me” which likes knowledge, which nourishes a kind of amorous preference for it. In the same way, I like certain biographical features which, in a writer’s life, delight me as much as certain photographs; I have called these features “biographemes”;  Photography has the same relation to History that the biographeme has to biography.”

• End of page 28 and beginning of page 30

This section, which is also chapter 11, in my opinion shows Roland Barthes’s overall opinion on photography and the power it has. He starts off the chapter by first comparing a photograph and a text and showing how there is more that can be done with a photograph. Also, he shows that a text can completely change depending on word choice, while a photo is not so easily altered. Additionally, Barthes compares a photograph to a portrait and once again he states how a photo holds more power. Furthermore, Barthes explains the potential and power a photograph has at capturing a moment in time. He highlights in this section how an image through its details can show the style, fashion, human relations, and the overall scene at that particular moment in time. Roland Barthes used an example which was a photograph done by William Klein called “Mayday, 1959.” He explained how the photograph taught him how Russian’s dressed in the 1960s and the stylistic preference of the people in that period like men having long nails. 

“(I cannot reproduce the Winter Garden Photograph. It exists only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture, one of the thousand manifestations of the “ordinary”; it cannot in any way constitute the visible object of a science; it cannot establish an objectivity, in the positive sense of the term; at most it would interest your studium: period, clothes, photogeny; but in it, for you, no wound.)”

• End of page 73

This section of chapter 30, although small, resonates very largely with me. Barthes discusses how personal photographs, which to most seem regular and nothing out of the ordinary, can be absolutely special to a certain person and hold an important place in their hearts. Barthes uses the Winter Garden Photograph as an example. This photo is of his mom as a youth standing with her brother. To most of us, this would just be a typical family photo, but to Barthes, it is much more. Since Barthes has a personal connection to it he views it as more than just an average photo and sees it as the best representation he could think of his mom. I believe similarly that certain photographs that I hold dear might not mean anything to an observer, but to me, they might show a story and an important moment of my life.

The question I would ask: There are numerous photographs in Camera Lucida, which Barthes chose to include, are there any that stood out to you and what would you identify as your studium, the original emotion you felt, and the punctum, the detail that pricked you and that you focused on?

A little sneak peak why I chose this photo: Relating back to the point Barthes made in chapter 30, some photos might have personal connotations to them and for me it is this Alaskan landscape.

Barthes, the author of Camera Lucida, provides a unique perspective on photography, contributing a philosophical lens on what exactly photography is through its essence. From the first part of the book, the passage that touches on the history of the photograph seemed important in the process of understanding Barthes’ argument at first. On page twelve, Barthes defines the history through how one sees themself; “To see oneself (differently from in a mirror): on the scale of History, this action is recent, the painted, drawn, or miniaturized portrait having been, until the spread of Photography, a limited possession, intended moreover to advertise a social and financial status-and in any case, a painted portrait, however close the resemblance (this is what I am trying to prove) is not a photograph” (Barthes, 12). Barthes then describes the photograph as “…the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity”(Barthes, 12). I interpreted this specific passage as Barthes’ way of saying that photographs do not necessarily capture the true identity, or essence of what was occurring in a photograph. This passage seemed to help me better understand his overall argument that we cannot identify ourself or others through photographs, as that does not genuinely reflect the person, especially with the passage of time.  

In the second part of Camera Lucida, Barthes’ delves further into his analysis. Stating that “The Photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been,” emphasizes the idea that the photograph does not reflect its object accurately with the passage of time (Barthes, 85). This particular statement allowed me to grasp the idea Barthes was trying to argue: that the essence of photography itself is its past events and the ways in which the photograph is presented, “its testimony bears not on the object but on the time” and “The choice is mine: to subject its spectacle to the civilized code of perfect illusions, or to confront in it the wakening of intractable reality”(Barthes, 89-119). I chose these statements as they are integral in understanding his final argument.

A strong discussion question in relation to Barthes’ argument would be “How do you relate to photographs as the Spectator as defined by Barthes?”

“The screen… is not a frame but a hideout; the man or woman who emerges from it continues living: a “blind field” constantly doubles our partial vision…. When we define the Photograph as a motionless image, this does not mean only that the figures it represents do not move; it means that they do not emerge, do not leave… Yet once there is a punctum, a blind field is created” (57).

In this passage, Barthes compares photographs and films. The distinction, according to him, is the development of the “blind field”. Films are able to institute a greater story beyond what is simply shown on the screen, whereas photographs require the spectator to create their own secondary meaning. The “partial vision” is what is shown during the viewing of a film and the “blind field” is what parallels the “partial vision”, allowing the viewer to believe the story expands beyond solely what is represented on the screen. Since photographs are more static than films, Barthes argues there is no reason to believe the story extends beyond what is captured. Instead, the spectator must utilize the punctum to create their own “blind field,” and thus, assign the photograph a greater meaning.

I chose this passage because I thought the comparison was interesting and I wanted to focus on it in-depth in order to fully unpack what Barthes is claiming. The idea of a “blind field” is also interesting to me. I always thought of the intention of the artist (or the photographer, in this case) while viewing a piece of art and Barthes sort of argues against this way of thinking. The idea that the viewer/spectator contributes something to art by creating the “blind field” feels much more interactive. In other words, this notion makes me feel less detached as a viewer.

“The date belongs to the photograph: not because it denotes a style (this does not concern me), but because it makes me lift my head, allows me to compute life, death, the inexorable extinction of the generations…. Photography offers an immediate presence to the world—a co-presence…” (84).

I feel as though this passage reflects Barthes’s enduring goal in this novel, which is unraveling the intricacies of life and death. I also felt that this passage works well with the passage I focused on in Part One. By focusing on the punctum of time, Barthes describes what he finds to be a “co-presence”, which is not entirely dissimilar to the “blind field” idea. It is this secondary viewpoint the spectator creates that allows a photograph to have a greater meaning than what is simply captured.

Discuss question: When you take a picture, do you ever think about what the punctum of your piece could be for the general audience? Or instead of thinking about a greater meaning, do you focus solely on what’s in front of you?

Part 1:

 “A specific photograph, in effect, is never distinguished from its referent (from what it represents), or at least it is not immediately or generally distinguished from its referent (as is the case for every other image, encumbered– from the start, and because of its status-by the way in which the object is simulated): it is not impossible to perceive the photographic signifier (certain professionals do so), but it requires a secondary action of knowledge or of reflection. By nature, the Photograph (for convenience’s sake, let us accept this universal, which for the moment refers only to the tireless repetition of contingency) has something tautological about it: a pipe, here, is always and intractably a pipe. It is as if the Photograph always carries its referent with itself, both affected by the same amorous or funereal immobility, at the very heart of the moving world: they are glued together, limb from limb, like the condemned man and the corpse in certain tortures; or even like those pairs of fish (sharks, I think, according to Michelet) which navigate in convoy, as though united by an eternal coitus” (Barthes 5).

This passage caught my attention as it was a contrast or rather explanation to something Barthes has previously mentioned. He started Chapter 2 discussing some of the usual classifications of photography. He explains that we can classify something as empirical, that is, whether it is professional or amateur. Similarly, it could be rhetorical or aesthetic. However, Barthes claimed that these explanations lack something. Therefore, in the passage above he provided insight on his own philosophy and a possible definition of photography. He makes the point that photography could not be distinguished from its referent, referent being what the photograph represents. Barthes offers us to see photography as an inseparable duality, and uses the fish and shark as an example. The photograph and its referent stand together and one can not be taken away, as this will lead to the destruction of the photograph. He seems to be displeased with this as this is what causes the “disorder” of photography. Yet, he does make the claim that photography can not function as a signifier. Later on in Chapter 15, he refers back to this idea and says that a photograph means  something only “by assuming a mask”. The mask is what allows us to create meaning from photography by having certain associations. Overall, this text above, while offered a clue to what Barthes might be saying, was a bit confusing in itself. It made me question why does Barthes have this view point and where does he want to lead us with it.

Part 2:

“Perhaps it is because I am delighted (or depressed) to know that the thing of the past, by its immediate radiations (its luminances), has really touched the surface which in its turn my gaze will touch, that I am not very fond of Color. An anonymous daguerreotype of 1843 shows a man and a woman in a medallion subsequently tinted by the miniaturists on the staff of the photographic studio: I always feel (unimportant what actually occurs) that in the same way, color is a coating applied later on to the original truth of the black-and-white photograph. For me, color is an artifice, a cosmetic (like the kind used to paint corpses). What matters to me is not the photograph’s life(a purely ideological notion) but the certainty that the photographed body touches me with its own rays and not with a superadded light” (Barthes 81).

I found this passage interesting, as Barthes presents his opinion regarding color in photography. He made it clear that in his opinion color is something that a photograph does not need. To him, color is an additional coating that is added after the original photograph. Barthes even compares color to a cosmetic that is used to paint the corpses. What partcularly struck me about this idea, is that a certain philosophy exists that claims that color is not a physical property but our own imagination. Therefore, when Barthes expressed his opinion of color being an unnecessary entity in photography and it being an additional layer, I made a connection to the philosophy mentioned previously.  Color, is something that does not need to affect the interpretation or analysis of a photograph. Barthes highlights that the major aspect of a photograph to him is the radiation coming from the photographed body or how he refers to it, the micro-death. He values other features of the photograph like the punctum over something like color.

Question:

In the final chapter Barthes states that society is concerned with taming the madness of a photograph. I wonder, “ What does Barthes consider to be mad in photography?” Moreover, how do the principles he introduced affect this madness?

Photograph: Mitch Epstein- Property Rights ( Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Gallery)

Passage From Part One:

“Ultimately, what I am seeking in the photograph taken of me (“the intention” according to which I look at it) is Death: Death is the eidos of that Photograph. Hence, strangely, the only thing that I tolerate, that I like, that is familiar to me, when I am photographed, is the sound of the camera. For me, the Photographer’s organ is not his eye (which terrifies me) but his finger: what is linked to the trigger of the lens, to the metallic shifting of the plates (when the camera still has such things). I love these mechanical sounds in an almost voluptuous way, as if, in the Photograph, they were the very thing-and the only thing- to which my desire clings, their abrupt click breaking through the mortiferous layer of the Pose.” (Barthes 15)

The reason I chose this passage was because it offers an interesting insight to the process of objectification during a photograph. A photograph essentially objectifies the subject. For example a photograph of a person is pretty much a fragment of the true complexity of a human being. A photograph may fail to capture everything about the subject. Going back to the example of a human being, a picture of a person may fail to capture the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of that person. What Barthes does is relate the process of objectification to death. He calls death the eidos or distinctive expression of a photograph. He alludes to the fact that death and photographs are similar since they are both an immobile representation of the subject. Furthermore, the fact that the finger that is linked to the trigger of the lens, that causes these mechanical sounds, is the only source of “life”, is a very interesting idea presented by Barthes. What’s even more interesting is how he portrays the click to be so powerful that it breaks through the deathly/immobile pose of the subject. To me this passage seems crucial to Barthes overall argument which is that the essential element of photography is Death, because photographs always take place in the past, a time gone by. Hence, one can never truly identify with/recognize a photograph of one’s self/a person, because that self/person no longer exists as they were in the photograph. 

Passage From Part Two:

“The Photograph does not call up the past (nothing Proustian in a photograph). The effect it produces upon me is not to restore what has been abolished (by time, by distance) but to attest that what I see has indeed existed. Now, this is a strictly scandalous effect. Always the Photograph astonishes me, with an astonishment which endures and renews itself, inexhaustibly…” (Barthes 82)

The reason I chose this passage was because it denotes what Barthes truly feels about photographs. He states that a photograph for him isn’t just something nostalgic. He expresses the idea that a photograph isn’t meant to restore the same feelings that one may have had during that photograph. He points out that photographs merely create certainty of the past. The event in the photo had to have occurred in real life in order for the photograph to exist at all. In photographs, there are no fictional stories. People can make up stories about the photograph through interpretation, but the image seen had to have physically happened in the past. As he goes on to state in the following passage, the essence of photography is the “that-has-been” (Barthes 85). To me this passage encapsulates Barthes opinion of photography. I feel like discussing this in class and analyzing his opinion and claims may be a great way to formulate our own ideas about photography.

One Question About Camera Lucida:

Roland Barthes argues that one of the essential elements of photography is death. Keeping this in mind, if we were to analyze/look at a picture of nature or “life” thriving, would elements of death still be present?

Picture (Benrubi Gallery – Hugh Holland):

No caption needed 😉

Part One:

Many photographs are, alas, inert under my gaze. But even among those which have some existence in my eyes, most provoke only a general and, so to speak, polite interest: they have no punctum in them: they please or displease me without pricking me: they are invested with no more than studium. The studium is that very wide field of unconcerned desire, of various interest, of inconsequential taste: I like / I don’t like. The studium is of the order of liking, not of loving; it mobilizes a half desire, a demi-volition; it is the same sort of vague, slippery, irresponsible interest one takes in the people, the entertainments, the books, the clothes one finds “all right.”

To recognize the studium is inevitably to encounter the photographer’s intentions, to enter into harmony with them, to approve or disapprove of them, but always to understand them, to argue them within myself, for culture (from which the studium derives) is a contract arrived at between creators and consumers. The studium is a kind of education (knowledge and civility, “politeness”) which allows me to discover the Operator, to experience the intentions which establish and animate his practices, but to experience them “in reverse,” according to my will as a Spectator.

– Page 27, the first paragraph of chapter 11

This passage is important to the text as it helps identify the difference between studium and punctum. The studium illustrates the intentions of the photographer. It has only a minimal effect on the viewer, not arousing any deep emotions but instead simply just sparking a small sense of appreciation or disapproval for the work. The analogy Barthes gives of people who view clothes, movies, and books as “all right” allows for easier understanding of his definition of studium. In comparison, punctum “pricks” emotions within the viewer. It is the wave of emotions that hits the viewer when looking at a particular photograph. This passage really helps differentiate the two and is, therefore, crucial to the text.

Part Two:

At the time (at the beginning of this book: already far away) when I was inquiring into my attachment to certain photographs, I thought I could distinguish a field of cultural interest (the studium) from that unexpected flash which sometimes crosses this field and which I called the punctum. I now know that there exists another punctum (another “stigmatum”) than the “detail.” This new punctum, which is no longer of form but of intensity, is Time, the lacerating emphasis of the noeme (“that-has-been”), its pure representation.

In 1865, young Lewis Payne tried to assassinate Secretary of State W. H. Seward. Alexander Gardner photographed him in his cell, where he was waiting to be hanged. The photograph is handsome, as is the boy: that is the studium. But the punctum is: he is going to die. I read at the same time: This will be and this has been; I observe with horror an anterior future of which death is the stake. By giving me the absolute past of the pose (aorist), the photograph tells me death in the future. What pricks me is the discovery of this equivalence. In front of the photograph of my mother as a child, I tell myself: she is going to die: I shudder, like Winnicott’s psychotic patient, over a catastrophe which has already occurred. Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe.

– Page 94, the first paragraph of chapter 39

At this point in the book, Barthes realizes that there is another element to punctum: time. Barthes explains that if the subject of a photograph is a living being, then there must be a time, whether past or future, where the subject dies. This means that when he looks at a picture of his mother, although she is alive in the picture, she is eventually going to die. This sparks a feeling of grief within Barthes, almost as if his mom had actually just died. Every photograph is connected to a set moment in time—a time when the subject is still alive; however, the subject will one day die and this adds to the punctum of the photograph. This passage is important because it builds onto Barthes’s previous claim about stadium and punctum, adding a new element to punctum that helps us understand what types of emotions photographs can trigger.

Question:

Which factors lead to the rift between the photographer’s intentions and what the viewer actually gets from the photograph?

Picture:

Part 1

“What I can name cannot really prick me, The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance…the punctum can accommodate a certain latency (but never any scrutiny).“

The first and second paragraphs of chapter 22, give a good explanation and example of what the author means by punctum. He defines it as something in the photograph that grabs the person’s attention and gives the viewer something to ponder as they step away. In this passage Barthes explains that this intriguing aspect must also be unknown, at least at first, to the viewer. It’s also important that it is obvious at first glance that there is something unbalanced in the photograph, and need not be explained by a caption. It’s a little hard to understand how something in a photograph could be so distinguishable yet be incapable of being identified by the viewer – a corequisite according to Barthes.

Part 2

“It was history which separated me from them…this is the only time that I have seen her like this…by accessories which have perished…That is what the time when my mother was alive before me – is History.” This Is a quote from the first and second paragraphs of chapter 26. Barthes introduces the idea that history has a strong impact on the spectator. Seeing a photograph of his mother wearing clothes and jewelry that preceded his birth had a profound impression and is associated with his definition of the studium. Although usually the studium is the background knowledge and information that the viewer has, here, Barthes argues that the unfamiliarity with the past is what impacts the viewer. This point is relevant to the argument because it explains one characteristic that appeals to the author as the spectator of a photograph. Since the historical background in the picture seems pertinent to the specific picture of the author’s mother, I think this idea’s relevancy varies for each photograph and sometimes isn’t even a factor. For instance if the picture is from the current era, and the subject is anonymous, the timeline of the photograph might not even be noticed by the spectator.

Question:

Sometimes when I’m in a museum and I see a very old photograph, I can get so distracted by its age and the differences of the era that I may not even absorb all the main subjects of the image. I wonder if a photograph’s age alone can be part of the punctum, not the stadium.

Photograph:

As per Barthe’s request, I did not add a caption for this image.

 Thanks For Reading!!!

Please leave a comment.

Thanks.