Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Vintage Classics)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Vintage Classics)

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 6,861 ratings · 190 reviews

Examining the themes of presence and absence, the relationship between photography and theatre, history and death, these 'reflections on photography' begin as an investigation into the nature of photographs. Then, as Barthes contemplates a photograph of his mother as a child, the book becomes an exposition of his own mind.

Paperback, 144 pages

Published July 15th 1993 by Vintage Classics (first published 1980)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Mar 07, 2007 Alejandro rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

while to many this book is another of barthes extended fragmentary ramblings on modern media, this is actually a touching novella about a solitary man's recognition of his own humanity upon the death of his mother. he so longs for transcendence, redemption, and eternal life and he prays it might come through the archives and the text. and yet he sadly worries it might not. and that his intellectual musings have somehow missed the point. if you ever wondered what in search of lost time was really...more

7 likes · like · see review

Jul 10, 2008 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: theory

Along with Susan Sontag's On Photography, Camera Lucida is one of the earliest and still most frequently cited analyses of the medium. This might seem strange considering how personal and 'literary' it is, but, whether for or against, academics continue to use this little book to make all sorts of exaggerated claims about visual culture.

As he acknowledges, Barthes' take on photography is determined by a phenomenological reduction. "...I decided to take myself as a mediator for all Photography. S...more Along with Susan Sontag's On Photography, Camera Lucida is one of the earliest and still most frequently cited analyses of the medium. This might seem strange considering how personal and 'literary' it is, but, whether for or against, academics continue to use this little book to make all sorts of exaggerated claims about visual culture.

As he acknowledges, Barthes' take on photography is determined by a phenomenological reduction. "...I decided to take myself as a mediator for all Photography. Starting from a few personal impulses, I would try to formulate the fundamental feature, the universal without which there would be no Photography" (8-9). He splits the photograph into punctum -- a 'point of interest' within the photo that is both responsible for its aesthetic quality and unique for each individual observer -- and studium, or more or less everything else: the signs of the photographer's intention and technical skill, the use of stereotypes, the setting, organization, the style of composition, everything to do with the photograph's 'themes' and culturally determined meanings.

How does one justify leaving out so much? Barthes does it by associating several features of photography with the studium while never associating any of them with each other. So 'taste' in the banal sense, technical knowledge (Barthes doesn't actually know anything about photography), knowledge of the thing photographed, and empathy with the photographic subject are all acknowledged separately, but declined on the same grounds: they don't pertain to photography's 'essence.' They are rather functions, 'myths,' involved merely in "reconciling the photograph with society" (28). So for Barthes the really radical thing is to relegate historical, political, biographical, personal, or whatever content of a given photograph to the realm of dull convention. It is 'unfortunate,' Barthes writes, though apparently necessary, that he finds Koen Wessing's photos of Nicaragua "banal." (23).

I think the problem is that, like photography, Barthes never goes beyond surface impressions. In a sense Barthes' analysis just repeats what he says photography does: "by leading me to believe...that I have found what Calvino calls 'the true total photograph,' it accomplishes the unheard-of identification of reality ('that has been') with truth ('there-she-is!'); it becomes at once evidential and exclamative; it bears the effigy to that crazy point where affect (love, compassion, grief, enthusiasm, desire) is a guarantee of Being" (113). Recognizing the ease with which photography confuses experiential fact with Truth, Barthes accepts the confusion as necessary, leading to the paradoxical claim that the Real Truth of a photo is more visible the more it is 'liberated' from all explanatory context. Its false impression of immediacy can then be reflexively experienced in idiosyncratic ways by the observer (who, for instance, can go on to write about photography by writing about his mom).

Another good line, again relevant to both photography and Barthes' method of analysis: "photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs" (34).
(less)

6 likes · like · see review

Feb 15, 2009 M. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, own, theory

This is the first book of Barthe's that I've read as a whole that has fully resonated with me (though to be fair, it's only the second book-as-a-whole of his that I've read (the other being The Pleasure of the Text, which I feel a somewhat urgent necessity to re-read): I have mostly just jumped around with essays with him), but I really wish I could have read it [and understood it the way I understood it now:] earlier on in my undergraduate career. I feel like, had I penetrated what the book is...more This is the first book of Barthe's that I've read as a whole that has fully resonated with me (though to be fair, it's only the second book-as-a-whole of his that I've read (the other being The Pleasure of the Text, which I feel a somewhat urgent necessity to re-read): I have mostly just jumped around with essays with him), but I really wish I could have read it [and understood it the way I understood it now:] earlier on in my undergraduate career. I feel like, had I penetrated what the book is actually saying earlier on, it would have had a fairly large affect on the direction of my photography (and I daresay I would have ended up in a different position as that I'm in today).

What this did best, for me, was offer a very active reading of photography from the point of view of a non-photographer, which is something that photographers rarely think about, and when they do, have absolutely no capacity to express (I am sure there are exceptions, obviously). It is the photographers role, in critical or conceptual (or really, in all) work to consider the role of the audience regarding the image, to consider whether or not there is anything to keep the viewer looking, to retain their gaze and avoid the simple once-over-walk-away that haunts galleries over the world.

But what Barthes tells us, of course, is that unless one is trained in the arts, there isn't anything that specific. Photography, in general, I suppose due to it's noeme: "that has been," is actually a highly subjective medium, perhaps even more than other mediums, because there is ostensibly "less" of the author's hand (a myth in parts, but in terms of practicality and an audience reception, I think I mostly agree with this-- for most photography at least). So it really is arbitrary when there is a punctum in the image for the viewer-- it's something out of the photographer's control (and this, I suppose, is tangential to Barthes' Death of the Author theory; interesting in it's own right as Barthe repeatedly points out how images, photographs do not work in the same way language does [doubly interesting to me, as I profess to use images "the same way I use words" and vice-versa:]).

I think, were I ever to teach a beginning photography class, a guided reading of this text would be a major part of the class. Perhaps this and at least the first essay from Sontag's On Photography. They are (fairly) straight forward, comparatively, yet still very strong works regarding a sort of theory of photography, something that is very much absent from most photographer's body of knowledge (which stems from, I believe, the strong connections that photography maintains with commercial endeavors).(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 07, 2013 Caitlin Park rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Roland Barthes’ "Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography" is a collection of thoughts regarding the experience of viewing the photograph. The famous French literary theorist and philosopher wrote Camera Lucida in 1980 shortly after the death of his mother. He discovered the true value of photography after finding the ‘perfect’ photograph of her, a single frame capturing her entire essence that brought her back to life. Barthes’ Reflections unfold in forty eight investigative chapters, ultimate...more Roland Barthes’ "Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography" is a collection of thoughts regarding the experience of viewing the photograph. The famous French literary theorist and philosopher wrote Camera Lucida in 1980 shortly after the death of his mother. He discovered the true value of photography after finding the ‘perfect’ photograph of her, a single frame capturing her entire essence that brought her back to life. Barthes’ Reflections unfold in forty eight investigative chapters, ultimately shaping a new mode of personal observation in relation to the photograph, especially that of the portrait. He begins by lamenting how photos are fatally adhered to their referents, that an image can never ‘just be’ because it always signifies something else to the spectator. He argues that the spectator can never truly see the true “being” of the photograph because it is masked with symbols, whether the attachment is sociological, historical, or cultural, the medium always falls under a certain category. Therefore, the photograph itself belongs to the Real; its truth is simply beyond words.

Barthes believes that there is another way of viewing images, a theory based on existentialism and phenomenology. He views photography through the lens of subjective intuition that breaks through homogenous constructs and assumptions, freeing the spectator to reinvent the photograph through the mind’s eye. He begins his piece by describing how images challenge time and space, a realization he had when he confronted the profound capability of gazing into the eyes of Napoleon’s brother in a photograph. Consequently, the spectator must realize death, because photographs are always a slice of what-has-been. Barthes believed most photographs are merely dead, hollowed out images of objects, representing a mere fraction of time, incomplete and preserved on cold, two-dimensional paper. He believes there are exceptions, photographs that transcend their existence as mere copies of an original; they have the potential to become an entity unto themselves. In Part I, Roland Barthes sets the foundation of this perspective by breaking down the essential components of a photograph in order to find the ‘essence’ of the photo. To do this, he meshes subjective sentimentalities with structure. He uses an assortment of terminology to set a trajectory for his argument.

He focuses his theory on the relationship between the spectator and the ‘spectrum’. The spectrum is the person, or object, being photographed, and can be associated with the ‘spectacle’ and ‘specter’ (ghost). The studium denotes any discourse related coding of an image, may it be racial, cultural, political, and so on. It is these details of the studium that relay information to the spectator. The framing of the studium, by the Observer (the photographer), can be manipulated to the point of corruption—the danger of photography is the power of its function. Studium-driven photography is often found in newspapers and anthropological magazines. They are often grouped together in categories, and the spectator gains interest through what is referenced by the field of the image. It is possible to like these images—but ‘love’ is never a reaction.

Roland Barthes claims that there’s more to an image than the studium and its referents. He introduces the punctum, the key ingredient of connecting the photograph with the spectator, the sole factor distinguishing a reaction of love from like. There is a certain aura that can charge the spectator with passion that is completely unintended by the photographer; for example, a certain genuine look in the subject’s eyes, the mysteriously crossed arms of a boy, or disfigured teeth of a child. The punctum often clashes with the homogenous appearance of the stadium—it doesn’t point to any particular social construct, it only pierces the viewer.

Barthes believed that the most raw, truthful photographs were captured by amateur photographers, although the majority of the photographs reprinted in his book are from Avedon, Stieglitz, Wessing, Mapplethorpe, and Nadar. He emphasized the fact that he never enjoyed the entire collection of any specific photographer’s work, possibly excepting his favorite (Nadar), and felt much more attached to singular images, especially those from the genre of black and white portraiture. He felt a large fissure existed between good photography and the well-crafted image. Overly planned and processed photographs, like those of some artists and advertisers, lose an authenticity that spontaneous photos preserve. The punctum is not constrained to conventional aesthetics of art; it is subtle and detail-oriented. Everyone has a few photographs of themselves they feel are ‘worthy’ of representing their identity. The most posed photographs often appear awkward, while chance snapshots of laughter or a random tilt of the head can embody the self in the photograph. These photos with a certain ‘spark’ contain the punctum.
The resonance of the punctum is often mysterious and latent. Roland contrasts pornography and erotica to illustrate the difference between a studium-driven photograph and a punctum-driven photograph. Pornography simply signifies sex because of its brazenness and obvious intention. Erotica can signify much more to the spectator because of its suggestive quality, therefore it animates the deeper desires and imagination of spectator. It is the difference between a completely naked woman, exposed for deliberate purpose, compared to a close up of lace lingerie, an erotic suggestion. The punctum is found subjectively by the spectator. It is whatever directly stinging, viscerally captivating detail that makes the spectator linger in awe. It transforms the photograph into something deeply meaningful, forging a relationship between the spectator and the spectrum.

Much of his theory is rooted in Lacan’s Real, especially when he describes the effect of the punctum. The reason why the punctum is so captivating, to the point of mutual animation, is because it is an encounter with the Real. Discovering the punctum transcends the boundaries of time and space, therefore it is an encounter with Lacanian ‘Death’. When the spectator locates the punctum, they are unable to describe exactly what is tormenting or pleasing the eye so profoundly; this is because it exists beyond the symbolic order. When observing photographs, Barthes encourages the spectator to close their eyes after absorbing the image. Whatever details from the photograph materialize in the conscious is the punctum.

In Part II, Barthes describes his personal encounter with the Real when he discovers a photograph of his late mother as a child, a single image titled the ‘Winter Garden’. After sorting through dozens of photographs, he came across this one that epitomized her essence. He finally ‘recognized’ her. The photo completed a conflicted truth, one that elicited emotions of satisfaction and anguish. It is a constant reminder of her death yet, ironically, it reanimates her perpetually. Barthes did not share this photograph with the reader to illustrate a specific point—
that each brush with the Real is absolutely subjective. To anyone else, Barthes infers, the Winter Garden would simply be a rather blurry studium of period clothes and location.

Although the focus of Camera Lucida is photography, the reader doesn’t need to know technicalities of the field. The book is part philosophy of the image and part existential crisis. The phenomenon of photography has changed the way information is circulated and processed, and it goes without saying it affects people on a primitive level. The reader of Camera Lucida is only required to be familiar with recognizing the world of images and symbols and sensitive to its impact on the human psyche. Camera Lucida plays with a personal truth that can be either disturbing or reminiscent. Observing photography is about confronting time and death. Each photo is a lost fragment of life, with the capability to copy endlessly, immortal as long as the paper itself exists. After learning how much Barthes believed death existed in photography, it appears almost as fate that Camera Lucida would be his last publication before his own tragic ending, only three years after his mother’s death.
(less)

like · see review

Apr 22, 2012 Theresa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this short book a bit frustrating at first, while I was still under the impression that I was reading a book about photography. Barthes' discussion takes off from the experience of the viewer, not the photographer or the photo itself, and for a while I felt that I was floundering around in rather self-indulgent and often pretentious text, saved every couple of pages by a sentence or two that conveyed something novel enough to keep me going. It gradually dawned on me that Barthes is not w...more

like · see review

Sep 19, 2011 Trevor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: art, philosophy, social-theory

This is a curious little book, and it really is a little book – only 119 pages. It is curious because it is two books. The first is a kind of philosophical discussion on the nature of photography. He says many very interesting things here – interesting in a philosophical kind of way. He starts with the basics and works his way up from there. For example, he says we can have three relationships to photographs: we can take them (he doesn’t take them so he has virtually nothing to say about this),...more This is a curious little book, and it really is a little book – only 119 pages. It is curious because it is two books. The first is a kind of philosophical discussion on the nature of photography. He says many very interesting things here – interesting in a philosophical kind of way. He starts with the basics and works his way up from there. For example, he says we can have three relationships to photographs: we can take them (he doesn’t take them so he has virtually nothing to say about this), we can be in them (and this is interesting, as having our picture taken means to pose – so what is it that we are seeing when we see a photo of ourselves?) and finally we can look at photographs (even if we are a super model this is surely our most frequent experience of photography). This last relationship of us to the photograph is what most of both parts of this book is about.

Rather than summarising this book I’m going to talk about some of the things that stopped me while reading it, that is, the things that made me think and then where those thought took me.

Firstly, I have to say that I’m not sure I fully agree with him – it is hard to say because some of the things he says I didn’t quite follow and so my criticisms may just be due to my not reading him closely enough. He repeatedly says that there is a kind of banality to photography. A photograph shows what was there. There is a lovely bit where he says that a photograph is like Cassandra – the woman Apollo gave the gift of prophesy to, but when she still wouldn’t have him as her lover he twisted the gift so that no one would ever believe her prophesies. We know photographs speak the truth, but often we are dumbfounded by the truths they say – photographs are Cassandras with their gaze fixed on the past. I really like that image. How often have we seen a photograph of ourselves or of a loved one years after it was taken only to realise our memories are out of joint? That some sequence of events must be wrong? ‘How can she be wearing that necklace then?’

The problem I have with his view is that I don’t believe photographs are simply the slices of time he makes them out to be. He sees photographs as graveyards for light. Open the shutter and the light that is reflected from a surface (the apple in a bowl of fruit or the half-turned smile of a loved one) reacts (chemically or electrically) with the mechanism so as to effectively freeze that light in time. We literally have the power to stop time, we new gods. Images, as he says, are a kind of death – and in a sense photographs are always about death, even within the minute they are taken, they immediately become about ‘then’. There is a sense in which the truest thing that can be said about a photograph is ‘this is what was’. But this view is only partly true. Photography is also about selection – it is always a chosen truth. Photography is also about artifice – it is about adjustments to lighting and focus that manipulate the truth of the image. And today, with photoshop, it is hard to know what we are looking at when we look at a photograph.

I have never been to New York. My only knowledge of the city comes from books and photographs and motion film. Could it be that the city itself does not exist? That the Twin Towers collapsing was really a huge fabrication in an international scale version of the Truman Show? Probably not. But then, I’ve also seen photographs of nuclear and biological war facilities in Iraq, with their storage tanks and their reinforced concrete walls, and what was black and white before the war was somehow to become shades of grey after, so who is to say? It is not just that we get to choose what to point the camera toward that is an ideological decision, but how we go about reading photographs is also deeply ideological.

I quite like the idea of the USA being a hugely expensive version of the Truman Show – let’s face it, it does offer the most satisfactory explanation for Rick Perry I can come up with, so I think I’m going to just go with it.

Barthes says that photographs can’t really be categorised and that there is a kind of surface meaning to photos that he refers to as studium, as a kind of study. This is our cultural understanding of photographs, what we feel when we see an image of nuns walking behind a group of soldiers on patrol. He doesn’t say this, but it is almost our rational brain that processes these images. But then there is what he calls punctum. This is something about the image that stops us. An example might help. There is a photo here of a young boy and in the photo an adult is playfully pointing a pistol at this young boy’s head. But Barthes says when he sees this photograph all he really sees is the boy’s bad teeth. The studium is basically ‘staged’ – the punctum is a kind of truth that just is. The punctum stops us, but it is rarely the key ‘message’ of the photograph.

The second half of this book is about him considering photographs of his mother and is quite moving. Looking for a photograph that has a dual impact on him – one that makes him feel it shows his mother as she was and also brings her back to life again. Obviously, such photographs are rare. I think this is because we aren’t quite ourselves when we pose for a photograph. Such photographs are self-conscious and so can never be essentially us. But there is a lovely line I read somewhere – that great photographs are never taken, but are given. Given, that is, by the subject. As someone who has often been the subject of photographs, a particularly self-conscious subject too, I find I’m rarely happy with the images taken of me – or even of the ones I try to ‘give’. So few of them look anything like I think I look like. I believe this is because I mostly only see myself straight-on. When photos are not taken as direct mirror shots they stop looking like me – the me I generally see is the face-to-mirror angle me – no other. But then, our self-image has a lot in common with photographs – neither age well with time. I suspect the image we carry of ourselves in our heads is a kind of photo taken at about 20. Comparisons between this image the person in photos and mirrors and in other people’s appraisals of us never fails to surprise us (well, if we are lucky surprise is the right word).

I enjoyed this a lot. But the best of this was my confusion over this photo.

I still find it hard to believe this guy lived in 1865 rather than 1965.

Oh, and his line that to understand great photographs you need to close your eyes really should be where this review ends.
(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Apr 24, 2011 Brad rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Brad by: Cabinet magazine

Shelves: completed-2011

Barthes believes in his own emotions. He is so sure of his reactions to certain photographs that he uses this as the starting point for creating a framework for analyzing photography. It is not about form, style or codes, but the interplay between two forces: his cultural equipment and its ability to give a general understanding of what’s referenced in the photo; and the details that cause “wounds,” giving the photo power.

This highly subjective approach allows the “Spectator” to find as much va...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 14, 2010 Nathanael Booth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is not a view of photography as an art-form, but Barthes’ attempt to understand exactly why certain photographs snagged him, tugged at his soul. He distinguishes between studium, that quality that makes the photograph of passing interest, and punctum, the telling detail (a pair of shoes, the texture of a dirt road) that causes the photograph to seem to say more than it does. He suggests that it is so because the punctum gives hints of a fragment of time captured. Indeed, for Barthes th...more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 02, 2010 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I spent this afternoon looking through old black & white photos from the fifties taken by my father, of the extended family. My cousins, now dead or old, as they were when young, at birthday, Easter and Christmas parties, and my mother as an attractive young woman with her life before her. Of myself in one group photo, aged 1 year, somewhat annoyed at sliding off my cousin Janet’s 8-year-old knee as I try to read my book, believe it or not!

I’ve often thought this – that when you look into a...more

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 09, 2012 Leslie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: college-books

I must confess that I was misled when I chose to read this book for one of my independent reading classes. From the title, I assumed that the book would be about photography, which it only partially concerned. Mainly, Roland Barthes used photography and certain photos to reflect rather philosophically on life, loss, and truth. There were some interesting reflections, and I might have enjoyed the book slightly more if I had opened it with the correct background knowledge. However, as the case was...more I must confess that I was misled when I chose to read this book for one of my independent reading classes. From the title, I assumed that the book would be about photography, which it only partially concerned. Mainly, Roland Barthes used photography and certain photos to reflect rather philosophically on life, loss, and truth. There were some interesting reflections, and I might have enjoyed the book slightly more if I had opened it with the correct background knowledge. However, as the case was, I was more than a little disappointed and even somewhat irritated by some of Barthes's ideology.
The main question with which Barthes deals is "What is photography?" and "What makes a photograph?" He comes to realize that every photo contains a studium and a punctum. The studium is the story the photo represents--kind of the basic image seen with the eye. The punctum is the striking feature of the photo, whether it is an implied mood or an actual detail. Probably the strangest belief Barthes lays with photography is that every photographer deals with Death since photos are effectually displayers of Death. Barthes makes photos morbid with this pessimistic view that every photo shows "That-Has-Been," even if the subject or place is still in existence. He also believes that photos can't represent the true being of a person. Only fragments or likenesses will be in a picture, and that means that none of the real person will be. His main focus in this argument is his search to find a true representation of his mother after she had died. The only suitable picture he discovers in his backward search through time is one when she was a child. Although it looks nothing like the mother he knew, the mother-as-child best shows who his mother was. Other than the fact that the relationship he describes he and his mother had is slightly awkward, the whole argument is really best described as depressing. For the better part of the second half of the book (when I was forcing myself to keep reading), I was silently wishing that someone had told this guy about Christianity and the saving love of Jesus.
I do enjoy the thought of a maybe mysterious or even haunting photo, but the deep analyzing and the discovery that photos have to have an air or a look or all these other things in order to "wound" us (why would I want to be wounded by a photo?) just made me glad to be done with this book and this guy's mind. He ended on the note of taming photographs. Society tries to make photography an art or makes it into a tyrant in this world of consumerism since we consume images. Barthes calls for photography to remain mad with ecstasy instead of tamed in this fashion. He does have some strange ideas, but I do agree that photos should not be tamed or segmented into a specific block of culture.(less)

like · see review

Mar 13, 2013 Martin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Such a great read! Barthes offers such lucid and poignant observations on the nature of photography and photographs. As an avid photographer the insights he offers has great personal relevance and has made me reflect on my relationship with photography. What I found especially striking was his addressing of the nature of photos being and arresting of the subject in time. It is evidence of their existence, of their 'that-has-been'. Barthes notes that whilst painting represents, signifies, the sub...more

like · see review

Feb 10, 2010 A. Jesse rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Because I've found few books on theory of photography (please recommend some to me!), I had to read this one. It is Roland Barthes's ramblings on the experience of looking at family photos, or other functional (rather than artistic) photography he happens to come across, such as very old newspaper photos. There is little discussion of aesthetics, none of technique (besides Barthes saying he's hardly taken any photos himself), none of photographers active less than 60 years ago. It is primarily a...more

like · see review

Feb 03, 2012 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

If you read Camera Lucida looking for a deeper insight into photography, I fear you won't really find it. Barthes describes his approach as a phenomenological reduction -- and it is -- which reaches results that seem more obvious to us today than perhaps it was at the time of its writing. Following Barthes' musings on anything can be enjoyable, and it's interesting just to see him think things through; however, watching someone think things through involves a lot of backtracking, restating, skip...more

like · see review

Jul 19, 2011 Amanda Patterson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: male-author, nonfiction

Camera Lucida is a philosophical reflection on the medium of photography. I've been toting this copy around since freshman year of college - one of my professors recommended I read it for reasons I forget now. I am not a professional photographer, but I've engaged in the act of taking pictures.
But this isn't really about taking pictures, it's about the pictures themselves, and how photography can capture in a frame the absolute truth (in most cases) and mortality of a moment. It's about how a p...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 29, 2011 Jon Anzalone rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Patronizing and solipsistic as a discussion of photography. Barthes spends ample time assigning Latin names to elements of what is, essentially, irony, identifies their interaction as either clever or lame, and then abandons them. Other elements of photography are not considered, and instead he marvels at the possibility that the subject of an old photo may still be alive. He so much as admits he knows not much about photography, and goes on to talk at great length about himself instead.

I've be...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 01, 2013 Kendra rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mfa-recommendations, nonfiction

I've heard a lot about Barthes, in various circles, and I rather think I should have liked to meet him. Perhaps I shouldn't jump to conclusions after reading only one of his texts--and not one of his landmark thick books, even--but the way his mind works in Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photographyis exactly what I had hoped to find in all of the other philosophical texts I've read over the last couple of years. Needless to say, I have been sorely disappointed. Let me explain.

One of the grea...more I've heard a lot about Barthes, in various circles, and I rather think I should have liked to meet him. Perhaps I shouldn't jump to conclusions after reading only one of his texts--and not one of his landmark thick books, even--but the way his mind works in Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography is exactly what I had hoped to find in all of the other philosophical texts I've read over the last couple of years. Needless to say, I have been sorely disappointed. Let me explain.

One of the great goals of philosophy is to reconcile all of the conflicting ideas that humans encounter. Often, these conflicts are described and exacerbated by language. Just as often, philosophers consciously and unconsciously complicate their language to reflect the increasingly complicated weavings of ideas. All too often, such great works of philosophy will reach their ideological conclusions without reaching a similar denouement of the language used to convey them. I'm happy to say that Camera Lucida dispenses with such a tradition of obfuscation. Barthes is, apparently, quite capable of holding two apparently contradictory ideas (photography can be understood through its symbolic and personal meaning--and--photography cannot be described and preserve such meanings) in his writer's mind at one time, without overcomplicating their relationship or confusing me, the reader.

I emerged from Barthes' notes with a new understanding of the systems of constructing meaning out of photography--the stadium and the punctum make for nice little takeaways--and with a sense of refreshment ( ... not all philosophers are out to get me ... ) and a sense of rapport with Barthes himself. I, too, have looked at a photograph of my mother's childhood and felt a certain pang of loss--not because she is dead, but because the moment depicted is itself dead, and preserved as if it is alive. There is something extremely uncanny about photography (... which is one of the reasons I dislike being photographed ... ) and the way it makes us relive experiences in a way no other medium can. Even when the photograph does not belong to me, I wonder. That wheat field--will the sun ever strike it the same way again? Has that child soldier escaped from war, or succumbed to it? Photographs are tricks of history, and memory. As Barthes would say, they are signposts of change and representations of things--moments, people, memories--that are lost forever.

Perhaps I like Camera Lucida so much because it is a personal struggle with philosophy. It is not polished; it does not have perfect form. It was intended to be a mere collection of notes, perhaps something to be expanded upon, but left in its raw form and immortalized as such. Barthes shares some of his favorite photos, and writes his way through obvious grief. His mother has died, and he tries to explain why one photograph of her holds more meaning for him than another. He grapples with the significance of personal meaning in interpreting photography, and with the problems of trying to convey the enormity of such meaning and such grief to someone ultimately disconnected from his memories. In the end, such a struggle is central to life itself: how is it that I can be known, really known, to and by another person? Photography can get us partway there, but it will always ultimately fall short of true personal revelation.(less)

like · see review

Aug 15, 2009 Artifice Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: tadd, favorite-books-and-authors

What I found particularly interesting, while reading Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, was the thought of what a particular moment his analysis of the photograph was tied to. That we are now surrounded by a multitude of things that appear to be photographs, but are no longer, that are texts in precisely the way that Barthes argues the photograph is not (and can be literally “read,” a series of 1s and 0s, though the task is obviously beyond human power). We no longer see, or rarely, photographs that...more

like · see review

Jul 28, 2011 Phil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: theory-non-fiction

I was a bit nervous about reading Barthes, as I always am when I approach a theorist for the first time, because I had no idea what his style would be like. But I found Barthes' style really enjoyable, even though he frequently dealt with reactions and definitions that were highly subjective, which makes it hard to work with his theories. Not that the theory itself was subjective, but it depended upon subjective reactions in order to determine what were "good" photographs (and I use the term "go...more

like · see review

Oct 27, 2012 Dot rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: childrens, the-actual-real-world

I hate the word pretentious: not only is it overused, it ironically suggests an intimate knowledge of what the person was trying to do and therefore is almost inevitably superior and pretentious as a word. But I'm sorely tempted here. Just using a couple of anthropological buzz words and a bit of latin and greek can only disguise the incredible paucity of thought here if you're intimidated by such tricks. To sum up-photographs aren't art because they're real, and that's a large part of their app...more

like · see review

Feb 04, 2009 Lindsay rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"I dismiss all knowledge, all culture, I refuse to inherit anything from another eye than my own."

Read in one night, which was supposed to be a "research night," but this little diversion proved more meaningful than whatever I'd planned to read. Camera Lucida is about the intersection of theory and the personal: a meditative pursuit of the "essence of photography" by way of an old photograph of Barthes's mother that he found shortly after she died. It's written in a way that makes you feel like...more

like · see review

Aug 01, 2012 Greta rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: art

This little book is actually two books. The first part is about photography, from the author's perspective as a non-photographer. The second part is about his quest to know his mother through what remains after her death: some photos. What you get is Barthe's contemplations on seeing, transience, experiencing the real and the quest to actually know something. All of this and how it's conveyed through the lens of a camera and the resulting photo is what he focuses on. This is a very vague review,...more

like · see review

Mar 21, 2009 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: art, other, philosophy, research

Not so much what I learned from this book, but what I learned from people who read this book - Designating something as a "great book" makes lesser academics willing to use key terms in non-logical settings. I love this book and its theories, but you must read it several times, return to it several times, before you can truly understand Barthes point. I've studied a LOT of Barthes...but when I come across people who have only read this book as a group assignment - it's quite sad. There is so muc...more

1 like · like · see review

May 07, 2013 Ahmed ZBEDA rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

قرأت هذا الكتاب مرتين .. مرة باللغة العربية وهذه المرة بالفرنسية، الكاتب ليس مصور فوتوغرافي ولكنه من محبيه، وهو واضع أسس النقد السيميولوجي، تناول الصورة الفوتوغرافية من الجانب الحسي كمتأمل لها وباحث في علاماتها ودلالاتها ومدلولاتها، هذا الكتاب أنار أمامي الطريق نحو الفوتوغرافيا المفاهيمية وفهمت من خلاله لا العلاقة بين المصور والصورة دائمة الذكر وإنما العلاقة بين الصورة ومشاهد الصورة كعلاقة خاصة غير متكررة بين المشاهد والآخر حيث يسبحون في بحر التأويل اللامتناهي والذي تقودهم فيه تجاربهم الشخصية وا...more

like · see review

Sep 27, 2011 Andrew added it · review of another edition

Shelves: theeeeeeory

It took me a little bit of time to get into this. Partially because I’ve gotten somewhat out of the habit of reading French theory, and partially because I really wasn’t sure to expect. As a comprehensive approach to the phenomenology of the photograph, it’s probably a failure. But as a lyrical essay, it’s quite wonderful. Barthes takes his own subjective, flawed memories and perspectives and is able to translate that inner thought into broader experiences. I sometimes think that Barthes was the...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 28, 2012 HM rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

والتر بنیامین معتقد است یک نقد ادبی خود می تواند اثری ادبی باشد و حتی فراتر از اصل اثر پیش رود. این اتفاق در مورد نقدهای بارت مصداق دارد. وقتی کتاب را می خوانی پونکتومی (زخمی) که عکس ها به بارت می زنند را حس می کنی یا هنگامی که در مورد عکس مادرش (که شاید هم عکسی خیالی باشد) حرف می زند کار از نقد فنی یک عکس فراتر رفته و زندگی نامه و داستانی عاشقانه را روایت می کند
هنوز هم بعد از سال ها کسانی که می خواند با هنر عکاسی آشنا شوند با بارت و اتاق روشن کلید را در قفل می چرخانند
نقد عکس به مثابه اثری ادبی...more

like · see review

Jan 13, 2012 Stefanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Barthes' Bemerkungen zur Photographie sind eigentlich absolut überflüssig. Aus der Sicht eines Bildbetrachters - nicht eines Fotografen - schreibt er sehr subjektiv, wie Fotos auf ihn wirken. Immer wieder kreisen seine Gedanken um ein Foto seiner bereits verstorbenen Mutter, auf dem er ihr wahres Wesen zu erkennen glaubt. So wird dieses dünne Büchlein für Barthes zu einer sehr persönlichen Abhandlung, die dem außenstehenden Leser nur wenig bieten kann.

Ich war sehr überrascht, als ich das Erschei...more

like · see review

May 26, 2010 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of the few books I kept from graduate school, and I'm glad I did. Just as poetic, powerful, and unassuming as I remember. Part one sets up Barthes' theory of photography and can be dense if you haven't been reading theory lately. However, the hard work pays off in part two, when he applies his conclusions to a particular photograph of his recently deceased mother. All of the work of part one becomes a way for him to process his grief over her loss, and ultimately to come to terms wit...more

like · see review

Mar 06, 2012 Omerakhayyam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just finished this short book. Its quite reflective and written in a very soft-spoken manner. Barthes is trying to grapple with the image and what it means, specifically in the form of portrait. This book is about 20-30 years old but his observations are worth considering in the age of Facebook and flickr. That is why I read this book, but also because I thought I could get a deeper insight as to how an image-based culture is different from other cultures.

He mentions the studium and the punctum...more

like · see review

Aug 03, 2008 Jordan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What characterizes the so-called advanced societies is that they today consume images and no longer, like those of the past, beliefs; they are therefore more liberal, less fanatical, but also more “false” (less “authentic”)—something we translate, in ordinary consciousness, by the avowal of an impression of nauseated boredom, as if the universalized image were producing a world that is without difference (indifferent), from which can rise, here and there, only the cry of anarchisms, marginalisms...more

like · see review

Jun 08, 2008 Dawn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

*..The Photograph belongs to that class of laminated objects whose two leaves cannot be separated without destroying them both: the windowpane and the landscape, and why not: Good and Evil, desire and its object: dualities we can conceive but not perceive..(p 6)*

I read this on the stinkiest couch in Brooklyn, breaking up.

What a beautiful book. Bordering on the sentimental sometimes, Barthes moves through the meaning of Photography. The thinking was so clear-headed and plain at times... and other...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Constant Reader: Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes	5	28	May 02, 2012 02:43am

combine
Other Editions (35)

More editions...

Genres

Art > Photography

160 users

Philosophy

77 users

Non Fiction

75 users

Art

68 users

Philosophy > Theory

42 users

Cultural > France

19 users

Writing > Essays

15 users

Art > Art History

9 users

Criticism

9 users

Academic

9 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes was a French literary critic, literary and social theorist, philosopher, and semiotician. Barthes' work extended over many fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, Marxism and post-structuralism.

More about Roland Barthes...

Books by Roland Barthes

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Camera Lucida: Re...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Camera Lucida: Reflect...

“Ultimately — or at the limit — in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes. 'The necessary condition for an image is sight,'Janouch told Kafka; and Kafka smiled and replied: 'We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.” — 50 people liked it

“What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.” — 31 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
avg rating	preview: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography Goodreads rating: 4.06 (6861 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/586219.Camera_Lucida?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328010407l/586219.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/586219.Camera_Lucida?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes[/url]

Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Vintage Classics)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website