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Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

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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.

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.

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.

Barthes takes us on a somewhat rambling journey as he attempts to understand the essential meaning of photographs and to uncover what it is that a photograph captures. Barthes cites a number of examples and he makes his search for meaning very personal when he discusses in detail his search for, and his understanding of, the photograph which captures the essential spirit of "his mother" for him. The book has tedious passages, but does capture some of what transpires when one finds a photograph which appeals. Camera Lucida will be of interest to photographers who care about their craft. For them, the book speaks in words about something they probably already have an implicit understanding of. People who take only casual notice of photographs will likely be bored in reading Camera Lucida, and may never finish the book. (The book was written before the computer and digital revolution. Thus, a bit of the content is dated by the manipulation of images which that revolution has enabled.)

Quite an interesting documentary of photography by Barthes. I think books like this, and Sontag, are interesting to read as they help us gain perspectives from photography from various approaches. This is simply a nice book to read that happens to reflect on what gifts/memories that images catch and leave behind for society to come.

It is philosophical in the sense that is questions what images do, but again a nice story in that it moves from image to image discussing them. Images of places that make you want to live there, images of people and how these images capture the essence of time, culture, and the gift of being alive.

It's a great read, for me, as a photographer going to my shelf wanting something to read on photography other than about apertures and technical underpinnings. Of course they are related, and unarguably necessary, for good photography - but like Sontag you experience some of the hidden games of photography.

For the deep thinking photographers out there, and admittedly not for all.

I am somewhat stunned and dismayed by the negative reviews of this book. In fact, it has seem to elicit a sense of vitriol in some.

It is a brilliant book. How does one state simply such a complicated phenomenon. One doesn't. Those who rated this book so poorly biggest gripe was the complexity of the writing. Well - it is a complex topic. But, I think Barthes beautifully and deftly counters this complexity with his personal reflections. The book is both a critical assessment of photography and an emotional one as well, and this is what makes it so wonderful.

It is not wholly unexpected that most all the negative reviews of this book come late in the day - in the ever increasing time of sound-bites, instant pleasures and generally non-reflective immersion.

By production values I mean the beauty of the physical form of this book itself. Between the lovely covers, I can quickly sum up the contents as follows: much ado about nothing. Barthes's singular contribution to photography, as I understand it, is the introduction of two unnecessarily complex concepts, both scantily clothed in Latin, both confused and confusing: the first, the studium, the formal contents of a photograph such as the circumstances it describes and the grammar through which it communicates; the second, the punctum, interesting things which poke out at the viewer. He describes the things that seize his eye when he looks at a small number of photographs - a shoe, a necklace, the tilt of a gaze - but doesn't delve deep enough to explain why these elements are important at all. The sense one gets as one goes through the book is that these punctum are arbitrary, idiosyncratic, and entirely inexplicable. When I picked this book up, I expected some guidelines, insights perhaps, into why photography is still today a powerful medium. What I got instead, was a book on mysticism.

The only disparaging thing I can say about this book is that it caused me to purchase a better dictionary.

Enclosed among these "Reflections on Photography" is a provocative theory of art in general, of what gives art the power to keep us looking. Barthes speaks of what he calls the 'punctum,' that aspect of a photograph (or, by implication, of any image, visual or textual) that pierces the viewer's consciousness, that wounds us like a dart of desire and leads to a blurring of the line between the aesthetic and the erotic. Here is an answer to Sontag's call for an 'erotics of art.' (Barthes and Sontag were friends, and it's quite possible that they influenced each other.) A great image, great art, has the power to wound us and fascinate us like a lover. And we as viewers must open ourselves to this power, like people in love. Indeed, one of the things Barthes is doing in this book is 'cruising' photography in the same way that he, a gay man, might have 'cruised' attractive men in the beaches, bars and baths of the 1970's. A wonderful book that deserves to be more widely read.

After reading these last few negative reviews i had to write in about this, one of the most amazing books i have ever read. It is true that this book could be thought of as for the well read and serious academics only, but really, it is a book for anyone wishing to challenge the true nature of photography and its effect on the individual and society as a whole. No, it is not for those who simply wish to sit and idly consume 'pictures;' if this is you then do not bother even picking up this book.

This book attempts to help us navigate the way we consume images, to make it easier to understand just what it is that draws us to them so much, and which for me it did beautifully. Barthes doesn't try to give all the answers, but rather approaches his explanation in a very poetic (not long winded as another reviewer said!)and personal language which gives an intimacy that is very rare in academic texts.

If you truly want to open your eyes to the wider implications of photography then this book is a must (along with Susan Sontag's On Photography)