Camera Lucida
Barthes’s view on “Photographs� as he calls them with the capital P was a very interesting view point. Unlike other reading before him he tries to tackle photograph from a different view point by defining pictures in a whole new way. Barthes’s method of viewing photo was amazingly interesting because he does not take what other have to say about the picture, but look at picture from only his view point with saying the words “I like it� or “I don’t like it.� Barthes interestingly created two words from Latin to categorize the photos with simply “punctum� and “stadium.� Barthes categorizes “punctum� as photos that “pricks� us while “stadium� photos are simply photos of like and dislike.
To what Barthes has to say make senses to me. For example when he talks about how “Photographs is pure contingency and can be nothing else,� it makes sense because most photos that I have seen so far represented something in one way or another. Another point that he made that took me awhile to think about was that “Photograph is dangerous.� I though how can a photographs be of any danger in anyway. Then remembering back to the Errol Morris article a photograph without the context cannot be that dangerous, but one with context can be dangerous.
I found Roland Barthes article “Camera Lucida� very interesting to read because I buy what he is trying to say. I also found myself agreeing to most of what he had to say about photographs therefore it was much easier to read what he had to say.
Comments
I agree with you that Roland Barthes’s view on photography and photographs is, for me, the easiest idea to understand so far. I thought it was really interesting the way he begins Camera Lucida talking about the photographs he sees in everyday life. “…I realized that some provoked tiny jubilations, as if they referred to a stilled center, an erotic or lacerating value buried in myself (however harmless the subject may have appeared); and that others, on the contrary, were so indifferent to me that by dint of seeing them multiply, like some weed, I felt a kind of aversion toward them, even of irritation� (140). After reading this statement, I began to think about the photographs that I see in everyday life, whether they are of people I know and care about, or if they are random images in magazines and newspapers. I agree completely with what he says about how some of the pictures affect him on a deeper level than others. I thought that you put into words perfectly what he was talking about with looking a picture only from his own point of view. Just because a photograph means something to someone does not mean that it will mean the same thing to someone else. I think this also comes into play with when you were talking about how photographs with context are dangerous. Not knowing the back story of a picture makes it meaningless to you, but if you know the story behind it, it is a whole new way of experiencing that photo.
Posted by: amanda wappel | October 22, 2007 11:51 PM