"Camera Lucida" anyone?

[megan]

I read an interview with John Szarkowski (sp?) in Art In America recently. (Ithink it was in the May issue - I moved this past spring/summer, so I'm catching up.) "Camera Lucida: Refelctions on Photography," by Roland Barthes was discussed in part, so I thought I'd pick it up and read it. I haven't finished, but I thought I'd mention it and see if anyone's read it or would like to read it and maybe discuss after finishing.

Megan

[drg]

Megan,

You must think by now that nobody reads anymore !

Barthes and the structuralists I have happened across and am aware of the whole branch of philosophy (short lived as it was?) but have not read a lot of it. Read a lot of Derrida in the recent past and found the whole context issue important, otherwise . . .

Might be worth dipping into from the synopsis I found at Barnes and Noble. Have not found the article you referred to that mentioned the book. Then again I have several books that I've started this year and hope over the holidays to finally get finished. What's one more!

Let us (or me if no one else still reads) how you are coming and if you've found the important 'sign' that Barthes is pointing out in this work.

[Ronnoco]

I avoid anything that has "Reflections on...." in the title. It suggests a very personal, individual, emotional approach and that the author is writing more for him or herself rather than to really communicate with anyone else.

Ronnoco

[megan]

My reading tends to be rather scattershot, but I've been trying to read a bit heady stuff on my own as it will be a long time before I'll be able to pursue my MFA. As for other people reading - it could just be that those who read the more art-oriented photo mags such as Lens Work, CameraArts, B&W, Aperture etc. don't come to this forum? (Well, it is rather show here.) I should dig out Sontag's "On Photography" and read that again as well - I haven't since college. That's got some interesting gems that would be good to re-read, and bring up - um - and you might answer me.

Well, I've got some D-76 that I mixed up a few hours ago, so off to find a dark closet to load up my tank and continue my perpetual game of catch-up.

[drg]

Found a copy online of Camera Lucida! Now we will see how long it takes US mail book rate to get it here. Then maybe, maybe I can read it before the New Year!

I've got a copy of On Photography already, now to just find it. And yes, I'll gladly answer you!

Hope that D-76 didn't go bad and I hear you about the perpetual process of playing catch-up. I've got to run pick up some E-6 stuff from the lab yet today.

[drg]

[Note: I read the book over the holiday 2006 period and Finally have found some moments to start what I hope will be a coherent commentary/response]


The book would have been played to a very different tune if Barthes had philosophized in this revolutionary modern age of photography. He might have even become a photographer with the instantaneous imagery of current digital photography available to overcome his impatience.

That is speculation, and as such, is non-structuralist. Roland Barthes, the structuralist, early on in establishment of his position and framing of terms avows his aesthetic is one of Realism. As I am a Pictorialist for most of my work of choice, my immediate response to this book is a counterpoint or as a bookend to Barthes' systemic approach to classification of Photography.

The bookend analogy, hopefully, fits neatly alongside the mechanical structure of Barthes writing. Camera Lucida is divided into a casual and accessible, but formal, part one and a reflection on an individual satori in the later half of the work.

Barthes begins by seeking the universal photograph after a moment of what can only be called enlightenment. This launches the writer into the quest for a language of photography that he attempts to discover through the pure critique of intellect, while dismissing at most levels the existence of a language that already exists because of an attempt to imbue photography with its own special providence.

I am interested in this work as a counterpoint philosophically to recent reading in Derrida who I read/reread in about the past two or three years and as a component to the whole of the John Paul Sartre crowd for whom intellectually, if not practically, I have admiration.

If anything, a discussion of this work, seems to have some very interesting social implication with the current evolution of photography and ethical implications in the role photography plays either artistically or commercially. Alone that may make a read of this worth the bookend or 'counterpoint' for the thinking photographer.

NEXT: Getting to the point. Barthes lays out a course of action for the photograph.


A personal note, as I started and stopped in my initial reading of Camera Lucida, it did invoke some other writing, part of which is the motivation for part of my blog on Looking at Pictures.

[mtbbrian]

I am not sure how I missed this post?!

I have never fully understood the definitions of Pictorialist and Realist when they are applied to photography.
If I am correct the Ansel Adams and Weston, etc of the f/64 Group of old, there were were "Pictorialists" right? They were/are more of the pure photographers.
I hae often thought where my photography fits in there?
I certainly think of my self a "pure photographer", but my Holga stuff isn't exactly all that sharp, you know?
Looks like I should get this book! I'd love to read "On Photography" too!
Brian
A Real Pictorial Photographer... :thumbsup:

[megan]

Pictorialists were abound a little earlier in the last century:
http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/...y/pictoria.htm

Early pictorialist photography could actually be rather twee and lack substance.

Now I've got my old Beaumont Newhall book out, and am refreshing myself on these terms myself!

[drg]

Pictorialists were abound a little earlier in the last century:
http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/...y/pictoria.htm

Early pictorialist photography could actually be rather twee and lack substance.

Now I've got my old Beaumont Newhall book out, and am refreshing myself on these terms myself!

I believe Barthes is referring to the old traditional Art History/Criticism type of pictorial/realist nomenclature where a realist produces views and a pictorialist produces images which contain the two elements of an idea and its expression.

These terms have been replaced a number of times with variations including documentarist, journalist, abstractionist and too many more to list. There are a couple of other areas where language is used rather fast and loose in the book.

Barthes picks and chooses what he wishes to acknowledge from photography as we've all come to know it, and from what he wants to build this new (at the time) linguistic symbology. As a structural semioticist his philosophy of language and usage is loose at first glance but gets reconstructed (ala Derrida) to provide definitions that fit within the organism(Viewers) reaction to the signs provided by the photographs. [ Whew! I got through that hopefully without being either too verbose or dense. (yeah, sure) ]
The signs he is looking for seem to be the second portion of the book.

This redefinition is illustrated by the special usage Barthes employs with punctum and studium. But more about that when I finish my next comments.

I have been reading and re-reading Mark Rothko's Writings on Art the past few months and have found some interesting similarities in both of these regarding the relationship of the viewer, the work, and the artist. Yet they diverge heavily in terms of who, if anyone, has a responsibility or active role in the conversation and relationship. I only bring this up as it has some bearing and probably has contaminated my interpretation.

I find that the choice of selected photographs included as illustrations may be as interesting as the prose itself!

[les_]

I read an interview with John Szarkowski (sp?) in Art In America recently. (Ithink it was in the May issue - I moved this past spring/summer, so I'm catching up.) "Camera Lucida: Refelctions on Photography," by Roland Barthes was discussed in part, so I thought I'd pick it up and read it. I haven't finished, but I thought I'd mention it and see if anyone's read it or would like to read it and maybe discuss after finishing.

Megan

Does this book have any this to do with the Camera Lucida art tool like this one http://www.camera-obscura-lucida-sho...ra-lucida.html ?

[Margutal]

I read Barthes' book recently and taking into consideration when he wrote it, I think is admirable the insights on photography without being a photographer.

As methods goes the good thing of this structure is that we can argue about different points with certain order, and in doing so, what Barthes describes and tries to order intuitively we as photographers can go further into details.

Even to ditch some of his ideas that seems obsolete because of technological changes...

When you finish if you still interested, we can go and do a forum/ forums with all the subjects where we can put what "we" individually think and not quotes!

Mariano

[Skyman]

probaby to late for this thread, but if you have finished with camera lucida, you might want to read "the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction" by walter benjamin and my personal favourite, undertanding the media by marshal mcluhan.

[drg]

Wow, it has been a while since we visited this book thread!

I am not familiar with the Benjamin book but have read McLuhan at length over the years. There was a time when his, McLuhan's, "the medium is the message" was a mantra for many in the creative/visual arts field. My father had a friend who taught university courses in visual art and Media in Religion that was a friend of McLuhan. I wasn't a big fan of the underlying coarseness of the message. Then again look where we've evolved to by now!

Another companion work that I don't remember without going back through all these posts if we mentioned was Susan Sontag's 'On Photography'.

This all evolved from the shattered art world philosophy post WWII that led to the various abstractionist works. One set of writings, not photography related specifically, are those of Mark Rothko. Very insightful regarding a period if not a universal set of thoughts about the interaction between viewer and visual art. Barthes plays on a slightly more academic tone than Rothko who speaks from the view of someone applying the philosophy.

The interaction though between the viewer and the work before them is still the message of 'this medium'.