Studium, Punctum – Camera Lucida – Roland Barthes Barthes explains here the difference between pornographic and erotic photos thanks to this punctum that creates a story, a life around the referent. However, it can turn out to be late (long after looking at the photo): in order to see a photograph properly, you have to close your eyes. We receive it in the face when we read the photo, no need for analysis. The punctum is a detail, a supplement that can fill the whole photo with meaning, that has a force of expansion).
It is chance in a photograph that points at us, bruises us, grips us. The punctum, the most important in a photograph (when it exists), breaks the studium from the scene like an arrow, a sting, a wound, a punctuation. In this type of photography we find the photos of reports (which shock, which shout but do not hurt), and the pornographic photos (which present only one thing: sex). These photographs are then banal, naive, without intentions. If the studium is not crossed by something else (we will see the punctum), it generates a very widespread type of photography: the unary photography (only one sequence is generated by the base). The interest in a photo that has only the studium comes from a moral and political culture, it is an average affect, a general investment only. The studium: it corresponds to an expanse, similar to a field and refers to a classical information. These two contradictory elements are, The studium and The punctum. With the photo of the soldiers and nuns in Nicaragua, Barthes realizes that it is the duality between two elements that makes him appreciate this or that photo: it is the photo as an adventure. Operator, Spectator, Spectrum – Camera Lucida – Roland BarthesĬamera Lucida main keywords: Studium, punctum
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