Response to the reading “Extracts from Camera Lucidia” by Roland Barthes
In his analysis of photography in the book Camera Lucidia, The author, Barthes Roland uses a structural approach in the analysis of the art of photography. Barthes is struck in his analysis by the way each photograph moves people back in time. This is very true because each photo documents a moment in history that existed in history and perusal of photographs is something like a walk down memory lane.
Barthes also views photos as a form of resurrection because he believes that death is the ultimate photograph. This is very true because the image of a photo that existed in front of a camera does continue existing even when a person dies. In a photograph, the past represented in an image is very certain as the present, therefore, through a photograph, it is possible to know that the experience presented in an image is real.
Apart from Barthes obsession with the time and reality aspects of photographs, the other observation Barthes makes about photography that anybody can concur with is the factors behind attractive elements of a photograph. There are specific elements or feature that attracts a person to a photograph. Barthes view of the attractive elements in photography is very relevant.
While analyzing pictures, many attributes attract a person to a picture. The first is studium: which is the attraction that a person gets from a picture due to his or her cultural background, curiosity or interests in an image. These factors are very essential in deciding what people make of out of a photograph. The other element to the attraction of an image is the punctum or the details in a photograph that attracts the eye, arouses interests and nudges the memory. Punctum is what makes a picture make photographic sense for it is an attribute of the scene in a photograph.
In conclusion, Barthes believes that an amateur photographer is the one closer the mastery and spirit of the profession than a professional photographer but this is not true because the motivation for taking a picture for both amateur and professionals are different.
