Roland Barthes// Camera lucida.

[vpwphoto]

This is a good book... I have been digesting it off and on for a couple years.
Anyone wish to have a civil conversation about it?
You need to read the book to participate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_Lucida_(book)

[Greg Davis]

I haven't read it in a few years, but I remember he had very interesting philosophical concepts regarding the interpretation of symbols. If I can find my copy I will brush up and discuss it with you.

[ajmiller]

I'd be up for this too - I referenced the book for my dissertation on 'found' photography. I've just been through my storage boxes and found my copy.

Tony

[vpwphoto]

Cool... class is in session.

[Michael W]

I read it in the '90s and thought it excellent. Just pulled out my copy a week or two back for another read.

[36cm2]

I have always felt terrible about it, but I've tried three times to read it and it's put me to sleep in 10 minutes each time. Maybe I'll try again...zzzZzzzzZzzzzz.

[Tony Egan]

Many years since I read it but my recollection was of meandering and sentimental writing which I found hard to stay connected with at times. Maybe it was better in the French.
The studium and punctum concepts got trotted out a bit in certain circles when it seemed quite trendy to reference this book and make associations to these in one's own work and to claim to be influenced by these notions. It doesn't seem quite as popular any more and perhaps a bit "old hat". Fads come and go and certain concepts go in and out of fashion. I can't say I fully "got" what he was musing about, perhaps because French philosophy, or any philosophy for that matter, is not terribly popular in Australia!

[vpwphoto]

My favorite observation from the book.
"Camera's are clocks for seeing."
I wonder too if it was better in French... I can't get punctum and studium to "operate" in my mind's vocabulary.

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I read it in the original French, and can't say I found much use for it.

No, it's not better in the original.

Everybody always raves on the "usefulness" of studium & punctum, but they are utterly arbitrary categories, and are not specific in any way to photographs. The punctum is a strictly subjective criterion, not a feature of a photograph, and the studium is just the rest. You could apply that same analysis to a painting.

I much prefer the films of Chris Marker when I need an articulate reflexion on the power of images, memory, and death. As for Barthes, his best work remains Mythologies because it precedes his obscure semiological period, is relatively light on pseudoscientific cogitations, and its generalizations still pass for insight, not decrees.

[vpwphoto]

because it precedes his obscure semiological period, is relatively light on pseudoscientific cogitations, and its generalizations still pass for insight, not decrees.

... I'm going to digest this the rest of the week.

Shall I start a "group for this class"?