Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

Philosophical journey by author seeking a real picture of his mother. Lots of words to look up while reading.

This is an excellent book for those who want to understand photography criticism. Ronald Barthes was not a photographer himself, but he greatly helped in the construction of contemporary photography. His writings doesn't make sense some times, but understand that this book was originally wrote in French and at the last living year of Barthes. Then you will understand.

A marvelous book for anyone who wants an analysis of photography.Barth is a skilled writer, bringing a powerful analysis of photography.This book is worth reading, just to marvel at the sentences he creates.

Camera Lucida provides a moving and insightful tribute to the author's mother. However, to my mind, the thinking about photography is rather less valuable.Barthes begins by announcing that the subject compels him to dispense with the compulsion to theorizing that seems endemic to French academic writing. A promising and welcome beginning. But Theory keeps intruding, in the form of jargon (the distinction between Operator, Spectator and Spectrum, which is pretty much dropped shortly after being introduced), various dichotomies (which tend to be introduced for the primary purpose of being subverted), the generation of paradoxes, and the usual rather melodramatic "last word" concerning the inexpressible, the ineffable, and of course Death. Despite his promise to utilize as data his own personal experience of photographs in order to reach the essence of "Photography" [sic], Barthes never manages to get beyond the framework of "representation", "likeness" and "referent", all concepts (dating back to Barthes' early work in semiology) that tend to obfuscate rather than reveal how photographs present themselves to our minds. For the first thing to notice about a photograph is that it does not provide a "likeness" of a thing but rather the thing itself, the difference being that in the photograph the thing doesn't exist (here, now). In other words, the theoretical apparatus surrounding the concept of representation is inherently inadequate to understand what a photograph is, but Barthes relies on it (even if in a negative mode) from start to finish. Also annoying is the preciosity of the writing (its delight in its look and sound, suggesting an aesthete rather than a thinker), and the (again) characteristic striving for brilliance for its own sake. It's easier to appear brilliant when obfuscating than when enlightening, because philosophical and aesthetic truth is discovered not when we learn something new (via fresh information or neologisms) but rather when we are able to recall something we already know, but for some reason are unable to acknowledge. For these reasons, I find Barthes' reflections on photography to be at times very interesting and subtle but of limited value.

one of the best books on photography, if you are a photographer or fine artist you must read this, second half gets weird with his mom but a good book for sure

This book never cease to make me think about the role of pictures and the way it seduces our senses and memory that is difficult to explain by words. A lot of people arguing on the Barthes insistence on the aura of the pictures, though it's remaining true since the early invention of photography. I'm intrigued by this essay and continually fascinated by this search for meaning in the object of picture. Highly recommended!

Nice insights into the meaning and difference of photographs. Barthes covers mainly portraits and doesn't analyze landscape or still life photography. Also, he doesn't make any comparisons with paintings, which would have made it more interesting. His final chapter on photography as DOA is profound.

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