Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida: Studium - Punctum | FA ep. 16

In this video I talk about Roland Barthes' studium and punctum as outlined in his seminal text: Camera Lucida.
I find his concepts slippery and difficult to analyse in a linear way. I hope this video can serve as a point of departure for a discussion in the comments below. Please share your own interpretation of the material if you have one. Thanks!

[@karolinamarszalek6656]

i am so glad that i discovered your channel, i'm at the beginning of understanding photography, but that's just so interesting. thank you!! have a lovely day

[@bro_liv]

Just discovered your channel, that's exactly the type of discussion I'm looking for at this point of my photographic journey, much appreciated. 🙏🏻 I like that reverse motion he's talking about, in some instances, it has the potential to reveal a whole other level of meaning for a specific topic. Knowing why the photographer chose to show this or that, his/her background and how it affects the viewpoint/meaning of a photograph.

[@FlashbackArrest]

Thank you so much for your comment! Im not sure I know what reverse motion you are referring to, is it the bit that he talks about his will as a Spectator around the 2 minute mark? I don't think there's a different way to read images, that's why I didn't touch on the Operator-Spectator-Spectrum (subject) triangle he suggests. Barthes loved terminology, but unless it clarifies an idea I think it can be a bit too much sometimes.

[@petemc5070]

I came to consideration of the 'punctum' through a cinema example gien in a Thompson & Boardwell's book many years ago. It's stuck with me that it's the often small, and slightly inconvenient bit of reality that happened during a take; something that catches our eye and punctures the smoothly controlled representation being presented that we were being carried along by. You see it most clearly in on location scenes in low budget films and none in big budget Hollywood blockbusters, as they have the money to re-shoot to get it punctum free.

[@BillWittman]

I appreciate your efforts at providing open commentary on a subject - and calling on me to form my opinion.

[@FlashbackArrest]

Thanks Bill! Yeah I like to be selective with what I take from texts, good writing has a way of permeating into the way we think, and this can be very dangerous.

[@carlterver5217]

Watching this was time well spent. I like the way you have an independent mind, which actually breeds its own clarity for you and for me as well.

[@sussybaka9983]

Your takes are always interesting. You manage to keep an open mind while also relaying your own opinions on the matter.

[@FlashbackArrest]

Thanks! Yeah, I think its important to start with a horizontal relation to the text and always try to challenge the ideas if they don't apply to or match your own way of experiencing photographs. The hardest thing for me is not to be seduced by their virtuosic use of language.

[@jgarciaspitz]

Great video essay. Thanks for creating this series and channel!

[@lewiswarner2116]

How insane that you appear after I just finished reading the text!

[@FlashbackArrest]

Hahaha I didn't recognise you 🤙🏽

[@hera2oo2]

thank you so much for this video !! this book was part of my comparative literature exam syllabus and i struggled so much understanding it. this video cleared uo many things and helped me build an opinion of my own. keep up the good work !!

[@SLima-df7wj]

I learned a lot from this video, thank you! ❤

[@toku1846]

Nice video... You explain clearly, and well. I'm not so good with philosophy. but i'll present how i read, which i hope adds something...: i think Barthes' idea of the punctum largely stems from him wanting to put the 'thing' being photographed, back into the photograph. he seems to view photography as quite violently subjugating the 'thing' w/ myth; studium. kind of like a violation (of autonomy) of the particular. so reading the details like you did in your examples at the end, also seems like a violation. that wouldn't be as incisive without the knowledge that Barthes is really just grieving for his deceased mother, & that the book is somewhat of a eulogy to her as well. per Barthes: "The studium is the order of liking, not of loving" means NOT viewing 'loving' as just a superlative of 'liking', but something a lot more personal, &-relating-to-life. basically: he was trying to escape art... to view 'neutrally' / 'personally' to recapture the "that-has-been", which is (literally) in the realm of death, now. i don't do photography, but i understand the impulse to escape art for life. i personally cling to the feeling of growing-with-my-art. i showcase that progress to (hopefully) assert to an audience that the little details along the way are what actually constitute 'me', & that i'm not just what is to be read in my art. i am also asserting that to myself... i hope people will read my art as largely fragmented, & as a messy biography, if anything. i think this all is a huge impetus for every 'indexical' art... art denouncing its own status as art would then be its biggest honor. again: per Barthes: ". . . is this not the sole proof of its [photography's] art? To annihilate itself as a 'medium', to be no longer a sign but the thing itself?" in that sense, there is nothing helpful for photographers in this book. it's a book for spectators, only. ^^

[@josefinestenlund]

the punctum is not the photography in itself but the moment of the nuns and the soldiers. the photographer simply catch it

[@skolrelaterat4113]

I am reading Camera Lucida and it is really interesting and at the same time frustrating (multiplied by the facts that English isn't my first language, but French is impossible for me and the book is sadly not translated into Swedish) The punctum seams to be, if not coincidental, something intuitive. Would you say that is a corrects interpretation? If so it makes it really difficult to succeed in photography.

[@FlashbackArrest]

Hi! Thanks for your comment. I'm not sure if you mean from the photographer's viewpoint or the audience's? As a photographer I don't think it is necessary to structure an image based on these concepts; it can be stifling. The punctum is a subjective element that adds interest to a photograph. I'm surprised Barthes hasnt been translated to Swedish, there's a lot of interest in that country for photography from what I've noticed both times I visited.

[@FlashbackArrest]

Hi! Thanks for your comment. I'm not sure if you mean from the photographer's viewpoint or the audience's? As a photographer I don't think it is necessary to structure an image based on these concepts; it can be stifling. The punctum is a subjective element that adds interest to a photograph. I'm surprised Barthes hasnt been translated to Swedish, there's a lot of interest in that country for photography from what I've noticed both times I visited.

[@petemc5070]

I'm not sure if I'm mixing up apples and pears, but listening to the painter Patrick Heron referencing Picasso and TS Eliot on the experience of looking at a picture seems somehow pertinent kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpC1dZannr6gnLMsi=-qijsXGFgkLmL4Pn&t=2785