Visual Analysis

Wanlu Jiang

There are two parts in Camera Lucida. Roland Barthes (1981) tried to analyze step by step the nature and characteristics of photography in the first part of the book. He said that I wanted to learn at all costs what Photography was “ in itself,” by what essential feature it was to be distinguished from the community of images (Barthes, 1981:3). However, after the emotion was triggered by a photo of the mother in the greenhouse, he raised the feeling of photography to the ultimate problem of experiencing love and death in life in the second part of the book. Barthes (1981) named two elements: studium and punctum, which I think are two key concepts that he wrote in his book. He said that a photograph’s punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me) (Barthes, 1981:27). According to Barthes (1981), the definition of punctum is a kind of detail, and it is a precise coordinate and spiritual refinement. A photo without details cannot explain the problem and cannot be expressed. Studium makes viewers have unique feelings because each person’s sensibility is different, and it depends on the viewer’s own cultural background. In other words, how to understand a photo can explain to some extent who you are. Studium is obtained through the punctum in the photo. Photos without punctum may not attract people’s interests, so it is impossible to talk about studium. Barthes (1981) also talked about death, which had two meanings. The first is that people could not help but “pose” because the camera is in front of them, and instantly changes themselves into another person, from the subject to the object, and the second is the certainty of the photo, the subject is taken at that moment, it was fixed on the photo paper forever.

This book is based on the author’s personal emotions and writes some of his feelings about photography. He used several pictures to express his idea of photography, which I think is more about personal feelings, not using an objective method to argue his idea.

Reference list:

Barthes, Roland. 1981. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. First American edition. New York: Hill; Wang.