In Sections 19 through 24, Barthes continues his quest for clarity. I found myself growing increasingly annoyed with Barthes, feeling like he wasn't adding any new ideas.
In his discussion of the blind violinist, Barthes says: “Here the photograph really transcends itself: is this not the whole proof of its art ? To annihilate itself as medium, to be no longer a sign but the thing itself ?” This observation is triggered by Barthes noticing the dirt road, which marks it as having been taken in Central Europe. Barthes provides no explanation for why this particular detail allows this particular photograph to transcend it's referent. The fact that it triggers memories in Barthes is interesting but insufficient to make his point.
Section 20 sees Barthes clarifying a point he has been trying to make over the course of the previous sections. He says “The detail … does not necessarily attest to the the photographers art; it says only that the photographer was there” This strikes me as another true but obvious claim.
I found more of interest in Section 21. Barthes states “the reading of the punctum is at once brief and active.” I take this to mean that the punctum is not obvious, that it takes a moment to place it in it's proper context. The studium may be obvious and shared with others, but the punctum is more personal.
Towards the end of Section 21, Barthes says “I am a primitive, a child - or a maniac; I dismiss all knowledge, all culture. I refuse to inherit anything from another eye than my own” This, to me, is his strongest declaration that his reasons for liking a photograph are deeply personal. I can actually respect him when he is this emphatic and direct. There is some value in watching his mind work through these issues, but other times I just want him to stop repeating himself and get to the point.
Section 22 The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance. The effect is certain but unlocatable … the punctum should be revealed only after the fact … this photograph has worked within me ...I had just realized that however immediate and incisive it was, the punctum could accommodate a certain latency (but never any scrutiny) … absolute subjectivity is achieved only in a state, an effort of silence (shutting your eyes is to make the image speak in silence)
Barthes starts Section 23 writing about the origin of the the punctum: “whether or not it is triggered, it is an addition: it is what I add to the photograph and what is nonetheless already there” I was tempted to think that Barthes is just playing semantic games with us at first, until I read on. He mentions that the detail, the punctum that he noticed in Hines' photograph of the Idiot Children, was already there. So is the idea that we add it an illusion ? Are we flattering our selves when we think we've brought some unique reading the the photograph ?
Section 24 was mercifully short but interesting. Barthes admits that “I had to grant that my pleasure was an imperfect mediator ...” The brings up again the tension Barthes feels between wanting a science of The Photograph and wanted to have his own private reaction to a particular photograph.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Written response to sections 13-18
Barthes gave me more to think about, and more to disagree with, in sections 13 through 18. He continues to search for a system and for the essential nature of photography.
He starts in section 13 by considering the origin of photography and its relation to painting and theater. I found it interesting that, after he links photography to theater, he then credits the camera obscura with creating “perspective painting, photography, and the diorama”. The connection flows in writing, but becomes more complex when you try to trace it out in time. It is doubly interesting to see Barthes be more fluid, less blunt and less personal than he usually is. Here he is considering not a system or philosophy of photography, nor his personal taste but the history of photography.
I had the most problems with section 14. Barthes states that “the essential gesture is surprise” which he believes is perfect when the subject is unaware. He also says that surprise obeys the principle of defiance, which I take to mean that the surprise is intentional and a bit malicious. That is not how I act, or how any of my photographer friends act. I wouldn't want someone sneaking an image of me using a 300 mm lens, and I afford people the same courtesy. If I take a photograph that someone doesn't like, I will delete it or keep it private That being said, I sometimes play with friends who are squeamish about being photographed, but there is an understanding that they can ask for it to be deleted.
Barthes goes on to say a photograph is surprising when we don't know why it was taken. Well, yes, but that is not the only time a photograph is surprising. The subject matter can be surprising, the angle can provide a surprising look at a subject, or the shutter speed can radically alter the image. I'm reminded of Edgerton's famous “exploding milk-drop” images.
Barthes seems to be committing the logical fallacy of argument from personal incredulity. He wonders what motive and interest there is in photographing a backlight nude, or a freighter at dock. Perhaps he can't imagine doing this himself because he is not a photographer. He doesn't mention whether these images interest him as an observer. He finishes the section a bit dismissively by saying that Photography “decrees notable whatever it photographs” .
Section 15 was pretty densely packed with interesting ideas. The first is that Photographs are outside meaning because they are dependent on outside reality.
August Sander's images provide Barthes with a chance to bring up issues of class and social role. He writes “ Sander's Notary if suffused with self-importance and stiffness, his Usher with assertiveness and brutality, but no notary no usher could ever have read such signs” He seems to be saying that these people are acting parts, putting on masks, to such an extent that they can't recognize that they are acting. At first blush this is terribly condescending, but some people do remove the distinction between who they are and what they do. But for Barthes to make this a general principle seems to say more about the rigid social roles he was accustomed to than anything else.
Section 16: To Barthes Photographs of places must be habitable, not just visitable. A landscape evokes feelings in Barthes, without much intellect involved. It is notable that Barthes doesn't try to craft any science for understanding landscapes
In section 17 Barthes implies that news photographs are tranquil, using the term unary. He says that the news provokes interest, not love. This seems really odd to my mind. Photojournalism often shows things that are shocking, one of kind, I.e newsworthy. I can only imagine that he is thinking of pre-planned, “staged: news photographs, perhaps from the signing of legislation or the announcement of a person running for office.
Later in section 17, Barthes states that pornographic images are always naïve, without intention or calculation. I sensed that he is playing a bit of a game of definitions. If you tried to show him a counter-example of pornography that did have some calculation or intention beyond sex, he could just state that it was erotic photography. The delineation is up to him.
Maplethorpe is deemed erotic not pornographic because you can see the texture of the underwear. The texture is a punctum which add some interest beyond the purely sexual for Barthes. But this still seems like a silly and arbitrary distinction to make, one which is completely at odds with his repeated desire for a system or science of photography
The standout idea in section 18 is that details are happenstance, not part of a creative logic. It is true that the photographer often does not build the image up from scratch, but some do. My favorite example would be Cindy Sherman, who dresses as characters with every detailed considered. Even though they are constructed, the images seem genuine and spontaneous.
He starts in section 13 by considering the origin of photography and its relation to painting and theater. I found it interesting that, after he links photography to theater, he then credits the camera obscura with creating “perspective painting, photography, and the diorama”. The connection flows in writing, but becomes more complex when you try to trace it out in time. It is doubly interesting to see Barthes be more fluid, less blunt and less personal than he usually is. Here he is considering not a system or philosophy of photography, nor his personal taste but the history of photography.
I had the most problems with section 14. Barthes states that “the essential gesture is surprise” which he believes is perfect when the subject is unaware. He also says that surprise obeys the principle of defiance, which I take to mean that the surprise is intentional and a bit malicious. That is not how I act, or how any of my photographer friends act. I wouldn't want someone sneaking an image of me using a 300 mm lens, and I afford people the same courtesy. If I take a photograph that someone doesn't like, I will delete it or keep it private That being said, I sometimes play with friends who are squeamish about being photographed, but there is an understanding that they can ask for it to be deleted.
Barthes goes on to say a photograph is surprising when we don't know why it was taken. Well, yes, but that is not the only time a photograph is surprising. The subject matter can be surprising, the angle can provide a surprising look at a subject, or the shutter speed can radically alter the image. I'm reminded of Edgerton's famous “exploding milk-drop” images.
Barthes seems to be committing the logical fallacy of argument from personal incredulity. He wonders what motive and interest there is in photographing a backlight nude, or a freighter at dock. Perhaps he can't imagine doing this himself because he is not a photographer. He doesn't mention whether these images interest him as an observer. He finishes the section a bit dismissively by saying that Photography “decrees notable whatever it photographs” .
Section 15 was pretty densely packed with interesting ideas. The first is that Photographs are outside meaning because they are dependent on outside reality.
August Sander's images provide Barthes with a chance to bring up issues of class and social role. He writes “ Sander's Notary if suffused with self-importance and stiffness, his Usher with assertiveness and brutality, but no notary no usher could ever have read such signs” He seems to be saying that these people are acting parts, putting on masks, to such an extent that they can't recognize that they are acting. At first blush this is terribly condescending, but some people do remove the distinction between who they are and what they do. But for Barthes to make this a general principle seems to say more about the rigid social roles he was accustomed to than anything else.
Section 16: To Barthes Photographs of places must be habitable, not just visitable. A landscape evokes feelings in Barthes, without much intellect involved. It is notable that Barthes doesn't try to craft any science for understanding landscapes
In section 17 Barthes implies that news photographs are tranquil, using the term unary. He says that the news provokes interest, not love. This seems really odd to my mind. Photojournalism often shows things that are shocking, one of kind, I.e newsworthy. I can only imagine that he is thinking of pre-planned, “staged: news photographs, perhaps from the signing of legislation or the announcement of a person running for office.
Later in section 17, Barthes states that pornographic images are always naïve, without intention or calculation. I sensed that he is playing a bit of a game of definitions. If you tried to show him a counter-example of pornography that did have some calculation or intention beyond sex, he could just state that it was erotic photography. The delineation is up to him.
Maplethorpe is deemed erotic not pornographic because you can see the texture of the underwear. The texture is a punctum which add some interest beyond the purely sexual for Barthes. But this still seems like a silly and arbitrary distinction to make, one which is completely at odds with his repeated desire for a system or science of photography
The standout idea in section 18 is that details are happenstance, not part of a creative logic. It is true that the photographer often does not build the image up from scratch, but some do. My favorite example would be Cindy Sherman, who dresses as characters with every detailed considered. Even though they are constructed, the images seem genuine and spontaneous.
Written response to sections 6-12
I'm currently taking a class at UCSD called Visual Poetry. We are reading Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes. We read a few sections each week and submit a written response. Here is my written response to sections 6-12
In section 6, Barthes wants to have a reason for liking a photograph beyond the purely personal and immediate. He wants a system for understanding or classifying a multitude of photographs, but he fears that this is impossible. I think this may have more to do with his being a philosopher, a systemizer, than anything to do with the nature of photography. He wants to understand not just why he likes a photograph, but why one anyone would find a photograph good or bad. This doesn't acknowledge, or undervalues, the subjectivity of taste.
The distinction between interest and animation concerns Barthes in Section 7 as he explores the nature of attraction to a photograph. I think this is a useful, but not profound, distinction: Interest is just the automatic recognition (that's a person), whereas animation is a more personal, meaningful reaction (there is my first girl-friend, there is a herd of giraffe migrating).
Section 8 had some meat for me. For each photograph to have an existence, it must be distinctive, which makes it difficult to classify it compared to other photographs. Barthes classifies this as sentimental and specific. This aspect of photography strikes me rather as primitive, existing before or beneath language or concept. This reaction to a photograph is the ultimate in subjectivity: the fact that a photograph is of something that actually happened tricks you into classifying it almost on the level of something that happened to you, that you saw with your own eyes. It is easy to believe, as compared to a painting or drawing, that the artists intent did not influence the image.
I wasn't able to make much of Section 9, to be honest.
Barthes, in Section 10, is still trying to codify and name his attraction to particular photographs. He equates studium with the broad ideas that you bring to a photograph. Many different photographs can share the same studium. This is the closest that Barthes comes, so far at least, to the system of photography that he desires. But this is not in the particular photograph, and is something that many people could bring to the photograph. I find this to be an interesting but somewhat obvious observation. The punctum is the more interesting concept for me, dealing with the particular facts exhibited in the photograph. The punctum makes this photograph different from that one, also making it an artifact of a particular time and place. Someone talking on an iPhone can only have taken within the last few years, for example.
The most interesting part of Section 11 is when Barthes writes: “ The Photograph is dangerous) by endowing is with functions, which are, for the Photographer, so many alibis.” He seems to be saying that the photographer has to justify taking a photograph.
In Section 12, Barthes returns to the idea that a photograph has to be of something that has its own existence. He believes this makes it less fluid, as if the details are fixed in place. A negative comparison is made to a text, where a single detail (one word) can change how it is interpreted. I would have to disagree. As you read a photograph, your reaction can change as you build it up in your mind, noticing details along the way. Take Weegee's The Critic as an example. When first see the “fashionable” society women, it is one image. When you notice the bag-lady, the critic of the title, it changes to highlight the stark contrast between their circumstances. If you then learn that the woman was placed there by Weegee's assistant, it changes again.
Another example comes from Cindy Sherman. The first reaction is “Girl in trouble”, or simply “Girl”. As you look closer, you wonder: Why is she wet? Is she on a dock ? Where is she looking ? Just how young is she ?
In section 6, Barthes wants to have a reason for liking a photograph beyond the purely personal and immediate. He wants a system for understanding or classifying a multitude of photographs, but he fears that this is impossible. I think this may have more to do with his being a philosopher, a systemizer, than anything to do with the nature of photography. He wants to understand not just why he likes a photograph, but why one anyone would find a photograph good or bad. This doesn't acknowledge, or undervalues, the subjectivity of taste.
The distinction between interest and animation concerns Barthes in Section 7 as he explores the nature of attraction to a photograph. I think this is a useful, but not profound, distinction: Interest is just the automatic recognition (that's a person), whereas animation is a more personal, meaningful reaction (there is my first girl-friend, there is a herd of giraffe migrating).
Section 8 had some meat for me. For each photograph to have an existence, it must be distinctive, which makes it difficult to classify it compared to other photographs. Barthes classifies this as sentimental and specific. This aspect of photography strikes me rather as primitive, existing before or beneath language or concept. This reaction to a photograph is the ultimate in subjectivity: the fact that a photograph is of something that actually happened tricks you into classifying it almost on the level of something that happened to you, that you saw with your own eyes. It is easy to believe, as compared to a painting or drawing, that the artists intent did not influence the image.
I wasn't able to make much of Section 9, to be honest.
Barthes, in Section 10, is still trying to codify and name his attraction to particular photographs. He equates studium with the broad ideas that you bring to a photograph. Many different photographs can share the same studium. This is the closest that Barthes comes, so far at least, to the system of photography that he desires. But this is not in the particular photograph, and is something that many people could bring to the photograph. I find this to be an interesting but somewhat obvious observation. The punctum is the more interesting concept for me, dealing with the particular facts exhibited in the photograph. The punctum makes this photograph different from that one, also making it an artifact of a particular time and place. Someone talking on an iPhone can only have taken within the last few years, for example.
The most interesting part of Section 11 is when Barthes writes: “ The Photograph is dangerous) by endowing is with functions, which are, for the Photographer, so many alibis.” He seems to be saying that the photographer has to justify taking a photograph.
In Section 12, Barthes returns to the idea that a photograph has to be of something that has its own existence. He believes this makes it less fluid, as if the details are fixed in place. A negative comparison is made to a text, where a single detail (one word) can change how it is interpreted. I would have to disagree. As you read a photograph, your reaction can change as you build it up in your mind, noticing details along the way. Take Weegee's The Critic as an example. When first see the “fashionable” society women, it is one image. When you notice the bag-lady, the critic of the title, it changes to highlight the stark contrast between their circumstances. If you then learn that the woman was placed there by Weegee's assistant, it changes again.
Another example comes from Cindy Sherman. The first reaction is “Girl in trouble”, or simply “Girl”. As you look closer, you wonder: Why is she wet? Is she on a dock ? Where is she looking ? Just how young is she ?
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