Reflections on Photography

The following post is based on tutorial 5 discussion questions and are based around the reading “Camera Lucida” by Roland Barthes.

1. He tells us he wants to find out something about photography (p3). What is it? Throughout the reading, Bathes tells us he wants to find out something about photography, where he wanted to learn what photography was ‘in itself’, and by what essential feature it was to be distinguished from the community of images.

 

2. He tells us that he is frustrated by most of the books he reads about photography (pp 6-7). Why does he find them unsatisfying?
Barthes tell us that he is frustrated by most of the books he read about photography. He realised that no photography book discussed the photographs which interest him, giving him pleasure or emotion.

“The referent adheres, and makes it very difficult to focus on photography”
– Richard Howard, pp. 6

3. He comes up with three different ways that people engage with photography (pp 9-10). What are they?
Barthes comes up with three different ways that people engage with photography. He proposes that a photograph can be the object of three practices (or of three emotions or intentions):

1. To do – The operator is the photographer
2. To undergo – The Spectator is ourselves, all of us who glance through collections of photographs, through magazines, newspapers, book, albums etc
3. To look – The spectrum of the photograph which is the person or thing photographed, the target

   

Do you think they are still valid categories in the age of social media and the selfie?

Yes, I do believe they are still valid catergories in the age of social media and the selfie. People get pleasure from photos they take and take pride in their photography when the correct lighting and angles are portrayed through these photos.

4. What does camera obscura literally mean, what was a camera obscura?
Camera Obscura is Latin meaning for ‘dark room’ and is also known as a pinhole image. Camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image through a pinhole, where an image at one side of a screen is projected to the other side through a small hole as a reversed and inverted image on a surface opposite to the opening. The surroundings have to be relatively dark for the image to work and be clear. In contrast, camera lucida is an optical device that merges an image of a scene so the artist can see a virtual image of an object in the place of the paper and is able to copy and trace the image.

References:

Barthes, R. 1982, Camera Lucida:Reflections on photography, New York Hill & Wang, pp 3 – 10

Figure 1: Barthes, R. 1982, Camera Lucida:Reflections on photography, New York Hill & Wang, pp 3 – 10, Accessed: 29 August 2018

Figure 2: Barthes, R. 1982, Camera Lucida:Reflections on photography, New York Hill & Wang, pp 3 – 10, Accessed: 29 August 2018