If this reaction seems extreme, we should recall how Barthes first describes “the punctum”: it is that thing that advenes, the “accident which pricks me,” the “sting, speck, cut, little hole,” the “detail” whose “mere presence changes my reading” so “that I am looking at a new photograph, marked in my eyes with a higher value.” 6 The punctum is a mutually self-constituting thing, since Barthes tells us that “it animates me, and I animate it” (20). This is to say that if, as Barthes’s theory suggests, a photograph is valuable only to the extent that it catalyzes and animates a set of private memories and ahistorical interpretations, all of which might then stand in place of the image that triggers them, then why share photographs at all? In contemplating Camera Lucida now, in the wake of the fortieth anniversary of its publication, I am moved to ask: How could a book so intensely bound up with photography and loss show so little generosity, and why, today, should we heed its call? Beyond this, what might insights from black studies bring to bear on a book so indebted to the identification and rejection of difference in the expropriative formulation of Barthes’s inner self? 4 On reflection, Barthes’s retention of that (iconic?) image seems entirely consonant with the anti-historical, and thus antisocial, logic of the theory of photography that he develops. Having attributed its absence to grief, and thus having neglected the fraught politics of visibility on which Barthes’s theory is premised, it is only recently, and in the light of the instructive interventions of Kaja Silverman, Fred Moten, Tina Campt, and Jonathan Beller, that I have thoroughly reconstructed my point of view. It is an image whose presence (and absence) in the book plainly has a transformative effect on his thinking with and about photography, but the vagaries of grief are unpredictable, and photographs can indeed wound. I’ve thought for quite some time that Roland Barthes’s grief at the recent death of his mother was the sole and logical reason for his withdrawing from us the image of his dearly departed mother as a young girl in the famous Winter Garden Photograph, of which he writes at length in Camera Lucida. The privation of History protects and tames the colonizer’s imagination as viewer. Typically, there is in this grammar of description the perspective of “declension,” not of simultaneity, and its point of initiation is solipsistic. Roland Barthes in conversation with Guy Mandery 1 They are the ones I use in my text to make certain points. The photographs I choose have an argumentative value. Part 1: Solipsism, Stigmata, and Silencing Invocations Copyright: The Richard Avedon Foundation. Reflections in store windows can make for fascinating compositions with the overlap of subjects inside and outside and the change of light from night to day.Richard Avedon, William Casby, born in slavery, Algiers, Louisiana, March 24, 1963. Keep an extra eye out for any glimmer when you’re out shooting.Ī classic that is often paired with black and white photography. Walls (think marble and stone), doorknobs, and cars are just a start. We’ll start with where to find reflections – then, scroll further down to find tips on technique: Where to Find Reflectionsĭon’t limit yourself to shiny floors. Test your creative palate and get some amazing photos while you’re at it. Here are our best tips for photographing reflections – where to find them and techniques for getting the best image on your smartphone and beyond. Reflections appear in the most delightfully surprising places and combined with your creative eye can bring you stunning results. The best places to find reflections, plus tips on techniqueĪs photographers, there’s nothing more fun than visual play – a well-placed shadow, distorted perspective, a filter over your lens, or even something as simple as a reflection.
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