camera lucidia.

Roland Barthes writes from an era where pictures were becoming prevalent, but from a time before the barrage of images that we encounter in our lives today. He writes from when photographers were skilled in their craft, and the average picture held a higher degree of preciousness. His tone is reminiscent, his words are articulate, and his lexicon is distinguished, frequently dropping words I have to look up or read back over to fully grasp. Barthes' position remains that of the viewer, never that of the photographer, from which he breaks down the experience of interacting with an image into the punctum and the studium. The punctum refers to the impact an image can have on the observer and the relationship that develops. The studium refers to the context of the image, the social and political state from which it was captured. In Barthes' words, "a camera mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially," this is the way of the camera, it is a device that captures (as well as possible given the camera and the photographer) the light that is in front of it in space and time, "the photograph's essence is to ratify what it represents." Barthes speaks of a picture in which he could not recall every having been photographed, but based on the fact that he is looking at a photograph, he admits to no choice but accepting the scene as a fact of the past. "One day I received from a photographer a picture of myself which I could not remember being taken, for all my efforts; I inspected the tie the sweater to discover in what circumstances I had word them; to no avail. And yet, because it was a photograph I could not deny that i had been there (even if i did not know where)." This statement is outdated in the modern world of graphic manipulation, cgi, and photoshop, but is one of my favorite passages in Camera Lucidia. There is a romanticism in the old manner of photography and the inherent integrity of film. Before the advent of the digital sensor there was more time spent asking oneself: "why choose (why photograph) this object, this moment, rather than some other?" It is important to treat each photograph as precious, it becomes too easy when shooting digital to ask oneself: "why not photograph this moment?" Such a nonchalant approach is causation to the current state of inflation, not of currency, but of imagery. From the moment we no longer ask ourselves why we are taking a picture our integrity is lost and our work loses value.