Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography [Paperback]

Roland Barthes (Author), Richard Howard (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1982

This personal, wide-ranging, and contemplative volume--and the last book Barthes published--finds the author applying his influential perceptiveness and associative insight to the subject of photography. To this end, several black-and-white photos (by the likes of Avedon, Clifford, Hine, Mapplethorpe, Nadar, Van Der Zee, and so forth) are reprinted throughout the text.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a great book--flawed, impossible, infuriating, and moving . . . but he has accomplished in this extraordinary book something finer than mere polemic. En route to his last painful discovery, Barthes takes the reader on an exquisitely rendered, lyrical journey into the heart of his own life and the medium he came to love, a medium that flirts constantly with the 'intractable reality' of the human condition."--Douglas Davis, Newsweek

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 119 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; Second Edition edition (May 1, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374521344
• ISBN-13: 978-0809013982
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Criticism & Essays
  • #14 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > History
  • #86 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > How-to

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107 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Barthes' last and most beautiful book, April 30, 2000

By 

"lexo-2x" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Paperback)

You don't have to be especially interested in photography to get something out of Camera Lucida. It was Roland Barthes' final book, the last of his great and highly idiosyncratic trilogy of autobiographical works (the earlier two being "A Lover's Discourse" and "Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes").

Although the book is ostensibly about Barthes' attempt to work out why he is moved by some photographs and not by others, it soon reveals itself to be a meditation on the absence inherent in photography. Barthes wrote before radical manipulation of the image had become a standard practice in photography, but even if he hadn't it would make no difference, as he is only interested in photographs insofar as they depict something that was there at that particular time, and is now (presumably) gone. He is particularly eloquent on a photograph - deliberately unreproduced here - of his beloved mother, who'd died shortly before he began to write the book. He doesn't even try to elaborate a grand theory of photography; this is unashamedly a book about himself and the loss he has suffered, which he finds echoed and prefigured in the photographs that he holds dear. This being the case, he is able to write as movingly and beautifully about a 19th century photograph of a condemned man ("I observe with horror an anterior future of which death is the stake") as he can about the cherished Winter Garden photograph of his mother (which he doesn't reproduce in the book because, he says with heartbreaking discreetness, "it exists only for me").

Barthes wouldn't feel much at home in the digital age. For all his academic reputation as a whip-cracking avant-gardist, his most powerful and convincing writing is always yearning back to the past. He almost manages to make nostalgia seem not merely respectable but essential. But his generosity prevents him from imposing this point of view on the rest of us. That's what made him a great writer.

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Transparent Camera, November 5, 2002

By 

Scott Esposito "Readsalot" (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Paperback)

Roland Barthes - Camera Lucida

Frequently as I read through the brief, but provocative, Camera Lucida I would turn to the author photograph of Barthes on the back of the book. The further I got into Barthes' book the more I wondered just what he would have thought of the photo of himself. You see, in the pages of Camera Lucida Barthes explains how he sees most portraits as mere images that are far separated from the true identity, much less the soul, of the subject. And so I wondered, did Barthes ever see this portrait of himself? Was he the one who chose it for the back cover? Are the subtleties of this photograph effects Barthes consciously created as he posed for the camera?

These questions that arouse in my mind went to the heart of, indeed were a product of my reading of, Camera Lucida. In this book Barthes explores the nature of photography, what sets it apart from other arts, what are its benefits, its liabilities. He also wonders what exactly a photograph is, what that cold image on paper truly captures.

The book opens with Barthes wondering what is that one thing that a photograph, out of all other forms of art, possesses. While contemplating this he also muses that a photograph is forever linked to the object of which it is taken. That is to say that a photograph of a girl is always linked to that girl whereas a painting of a girl might very well be the construction of the author's mind and have no real world analog. Barthes does well to open with these two thoughts because they become the central insights on which he hangs the rest of his theories.

Barthes is also concerned with how a photograph can exist, that is to say how it can become more than simply a sign pointing as a real world object, how it can come to embody that object on its own, how it can achieve, in a word, transparency. He sees photographs as dead objects, indeed at times is obsessed with this Death that he claims photographs confer on their subjects. It seems that somewhere inside Barthes is a desire to discover photographs that are not shadowed by Death; this is the transparent photograph he seeks.

As Barthes investigates these theoretical propositions he beautifully blends blend cold theory and personal reflection. For instance, when Barthes recounts his experiences as the camera's subject, and we discover a shy, even vulnerable personality. Similarly Barthes evokes tender feelings when he recounts the touching effects of discovering what he believes to be the one true photograph of his mother. In Camera Lucida we see that the author is a man for whom ideas are not theoretical abstractions, but deeply felt concerns whose resolution is central to his well being. This organic blend of personal and professional reflection makes Camera Lucida a work of much intellect and much beauty.

Camera Lucida is a slim book that carries a great deal of weight. It is a book that is highly recommended to anyone who is concerned with what separates a good photograph from a great one, as Barthes points a way past the proliferation of mediocre photographs to the truly great ones.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Camera Lucida moves me to tears., July 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Paperback)

One of my favorite books. Its discussion on the subject of "photography" is incidental; instead, individual photos dominate. Camera Lucida is a book about loss & grief, mortality, and love. It is highly elliptical and idiosyncratic ("rambling" to some), beautiful and deeply moving. It's the one great thing I got out of English grad school.