Thoughts on Camera Lucida

Chapters 1-5

Roland Barthes' mother, Henriette Barthes, died on October 25th 1977, and his book Camera Lucida is, amongst other things, a vehicle for his grieving.

Barthes starts his work on Photography by explaining how, as a child, he saw a photograph of Napoloean's younger brother. What struck him was that, when looking at the image, he was 'looking at the eyes that looked at the Emperor' - a revelation which set the scene for his musings on photography many years later.

Early on in Camera Lucida it becomes apparent that Barthes concludes that a photograph per se is inextricably bound up with its referent, or subject matter. Thus, it is all but impossible to consider the nature of 'a photograph' without being influenced by what it contains. He sees photographic images as recording a form of 'death' - a moment of time, an event, a juxtaposition of objects or circumstances, which will never happen again.

To explore the idea further, I took this image of my colleague whilst we were sitting in a cafe discussing Barthes' text.

The image is candid, in that my colleague looked up at the moment I pressed the shutter and had no time, therefore, to compose himself (although he was aware that I had a camera in my hand, and that I was using it). Thus, the moment was captured forever. Never again will it happen, even if we sit in the same place in the same cafe and discuss Barthes all over again.

Barthes refers to the subject matter in a photograph, in this case my colleague, as the spectrum; a term he uses because if its closeness to spectacle and, indeed, spectre, invoking a return of the dead. He refers to the notion of Death as the person being photographed turns from subject to spectator. He makes reference to the operator (the person who takes the photograph) and the spectator (the person who looks at it), both of whom are conscious of the spectrum but quite possibly in very different ways.

This image of my colleague also neatly leads me into consideration of Barthes' next area of discussion - what happens when someone becomes aware that s/he is being photographed. Had my colleague been given a split second longer before he heard the camera click, he might well have arranged his features into a less startled composition. Barthes points out that as soon as he becomes aware that he is being photographed he poses, albeit subtly, but he poses nevertheless. He does this in order to present to the lens an approximation of the 'image' he wishes to project

In order to illustrate this, I took some photographs of someone I knew:

Richard is unaware of me.

He spots me...

... and immediately looks 'cool'.

Turning to consensual portraiture, Barthes talks about four opposing and inter-related forces which occur when when someone poses for a photograph:

"The one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art" (p13)

I know what he means. Here are four images of myself:

The one I think I am - haggard, stressed, looking my age:

The one want others to think I am - cool, arty, living life in soft-focus:

The one the photographer thinks I am - high-living hedonist:

The one he makes use of to exhibit his art - posed, composed and artfully printed:

(Okay, I'm a lot younger there... but it makes the point)

I know from a lifetime of being photographed by enthusiastic family members who were keen on formal 'portrait sessions' as well as recording day to day life informally that one always, always feels the need to present a 'face' to the camera, even when feigning disinterest. Whether one wants the image taken or not, one knows that it will be a permanent record of the moment, so it is wise to look at least presentable, if nothing more.

Links to websites referred to when writing this page:

(checked and working 25/10/05)

La Chambre claire: note sur la photographie [Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography] (1980) Author: Barthes, Roland.

Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida—Reflections on Photography (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981) Annotation by Jenifer Schadlick Theories of Media, Winter 2004.

Camera Lucida A review by Elsa Dorfman originally published in The Journal of Photography in New England, Volume 3 Number 3.