A year or two ago, I had a YouTube show where I talked about Roland Barthes’ book, "Camera Lucida: Thoughts on Photography." It was published in 1980. In the book, Barthes questions the nature of photography and comes to some interesting conclusions and thoughts about it. I want to talk a little bit about what he calls "studium" and "punctum" in photography.
He thinks a lot about the relationship between photography and death. That interests me a great deal. As I work on my project (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain), I find myself connecting the photographs and death quite often. I have a lot of medicinal and ceremonial plants that I’ve photographed for my work. A lot of them made very nice images; they are beautiful and interesting to look at and think about. However, they’re all dead now; only the photograph remains. If you read Susan Sontag’s book “On Photography,” you'll find that she had some of the same (or at least similar) positions as Roland Barthes on this topic. It’s not a stretch to make these connections. Death and photography are twins. As Sontag said, “Photography is momento mori.”
The photograph captures a moment when the person photographed is neither subject nor object. He perceives himself as an object; he has "a micro-experience of death." The person in the photo no longer belongs to himself; he becomes a photo object that society is free to read, interpret, and place according to its will. This is a great way to explain what photography does: it objectifies. This makes it both interesting and dangerous, and I don’t think many “photographers” think about this, especially when photographing certain groups of people.
The target of the photograph is necessarily real. The subject existed in front of the camera, but only for a brief moment, which was recorded by the lens. The object was therefore present, but it immediately becomes different, dissimilar from itself. Barthes concludes from this that the noema (the essence) of photography is "it-has-been." The photograph captures the moment, immobilizes its subject, testifies that he "was" alive, and therefore suggests (but does not necessarily say) that he is already dead. The direct correlation to memento mori can be found here; if he isn’t dead now, he will be.
Photography brings a certainty of the existence of an object. This certainty prevents any interpretation or transformation of the object. The death given by photography is therefore "flat," because nothing can be added to it. In photography, the concrete object is transformed into an abstract object, the real object into an unreal object. The subject of a photograph is no longer alive, but it is immortalized by the physical medium of photography. However, this support is also sensitive to degradation. Something to think about as we pursue our illusions and “immortality projects.” Nothing, and I mean nothing, lasts forever. What’s the difference between 500 years and 10,000 years? Not much. It will all go away eventually. We will all die and everyone will be forgotten,
Studium
What is studium? Studium is a Latin word meaning "study," "zeal," "dedication," etc. Studium indicates the factor that initially draws the viewer to a photograph. It refers to the intention of the photographer; the viewer can determine the studium of a photograph with their logical, intellectual mind. Studium describes elements of an image rather than the sum of the image's information and meaning. The studium indicates historical, social, or cultural meanings extracted via semiotic analysis. In other words, you can see references to culture and time in the image. Sometimes they are juxtaposed ideas that conflict with one another or make a cultural or political statement, and sometimes not. This can be an abstract reference or an implied reference as well. Whatever the context, it draws the viewer in.
Punctum
What is punctum? It’s defined as “a small, distinct point.” Barthes uses it to refer to an incidental but personally poignant detail in a photograph that “pierces” or “pricks” a particular viewer, constituting a private meaning unrelated to any cultural code. The punctum points to those features of a photograph that seem to produce or convey a meaning without invoking any recognizable symbolic system. This kind of meaning is unique to the response of the individual viewer of the image.
These are really important ideas to me. As I study my photographs for this work, I find myself employing them as much as I can. Especially punctum. This unspeakable “something personal” that can’t be defined with words is really the essence of any good photograph. If you try to describe it with words, it goes away. I know it may seem antithetical to my position on the importance of narrative, but it’s really not. In fact, it supports the narrative idea fully and wholeheartedly. If the image is well-made and reinforces the story, the punctum will fully support it, even taking it to a new level. Bathes said. “However lightning-like it may be, the punctum has, more or less potentially, a power of expansion.” This is exactly what I’m after. The expansion. This idea transcends photography in a way,
The ultimate effect of punctum is the intimation of death. This is something Barthes realizes in the personal context of his bereavement over the still recent death of his mother. Looking at a portrait of her as a young girl (a picture called “The Winter Garden" that he declined to reproduce in “Camera Lucida”), he sees that her death implies his own. This is death awareness, or consciousness of death. Photography has the power to remind human beings that they will not be alive forever. In fact, you never know when your time is up. It could be today or in 50 years. We never know, but we should bring it from the unconscious to the conscious. If we did that, our world would be a much better place for everyone.
