hourstickby's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
kiramke's review against another edition
4.0
I appreciate the philosophy here, even though there were points where I disconnected. Probably something I'll buy for my forever bookshelf if I ever have the space.
letiross's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Racial slurs, and Grief
Minor: Death of parent
nickfourtimes's review against another edition
4.0
1) "What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially. In the Photograph, the event is never transcended for the sake of something else: the Photograph always leads the corpus I need back to the body I see; it is the absolute Particular, the sovereign Contingency, matte and somehow stupid, the This (this photograph, and not Photography), in short, what Lacan calls the Tuché, the Occasion, the Encounter, the Real, in its indefatigable expression."
2) "[The] person or thing being photographed is the target, the referent, a kind of little simulacrum, any eidolon emitted by the object, which I should like to call the Spectrum of the Photograph, because this word retains, through its root, a relation to 'spectacle' and adds to it that rather terrible thing which there is in every photograph: the return of the dead."
3) "It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in studium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the settings, the actions.
The second element will break (or punctuate) the studium. This time it is not I who seek it out (as I invest the field of the studium with my sovereign consciousness), it is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me. A Latin word exists to designate this wound, this prick, this mark made by a pointed instrument: the word suits me all the better in that it also refers to the notion of punctuation, and because the photographs I am speaking of are in effect punctuated, sometimes even speckled with these sensitive points; precisely, these marks, these wounds are so many points. The second element which will disturb the studium I shall therefore call punctum; for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole---and also a cast of the dice. A photograph's punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)."
4) "This longing to inhabit, if I observe it clearly in myself, is neither oneiric (I do not dream of some extravagant site) nor empirical (I do not intend to buy a house according to the views of a real-estate agency); it is fantasmic, deriving from a kind of second sight which seems to bear me forward to a utopian time, or to carry me back to somewhere in myself."
5) "I had just realized that however immediate and incisive it was, the punctum could accommodate a certain latency (but never any scrutiny).
Ultimately---or at the limit---in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes."
2) "[The] person or thing being photographed is the target, the referent, a kind of little simulacrum, any eidolon emitted by the object, which I should like to call the Spectrum of the Photograph, because this word retains, through its root, a relation to 'spectacle' and adds to it that rather terrible thing which there is in every photograph: the return of the dead."
3) "It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in studium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the settings, the actions.
The second element will break (or punctuate) the studium. This time it is not I who seek it out (as I invest the field of the studium with my sovereign consciousness), it is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me. A Latin word exists to designate this wound, this prick, this mark made by a pointed instrument: the word suits me all the better in that it also refers to the notion of punctuation, and because the photographs I am speaking of are in effect punctuated, sometimes even speckled with these sensitive points; precisely, these marks, these wounds are so many points. The second element which will disturb the studium I shall therefore call punctum; for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole---and also a cast of the dice. A photograph's punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)."
4) "This longing to inhabit, if I observe it clearly in myself, is neither oneiric (I do not dream of some extravagant site) nor empirical (I do not intend to buy a house according to the views of a real-estate agency); it is fantasmic, deriving from a kind of second sight which seems to bear me forward to a utopian time, or to carry me back to somewhere in myself."
5) "I had just realized that however immediate and incisive it was, the punctum could accommodate a certain latency (but never any scrutiny).
Ultimately---or at the limit---in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes."
obtuseblues's review against another edition
3.0
quick read. i think this was compelling for his devotion and grief about his mother, which he argued in a way was made immortal through photography. he's all about indexicality.
i almost used this for my undergraduate thesis but didn't have enough time to develop this argument and ultimately, had to nix it.
i almost used this for my undergraduate thesis but didn't have enough time to develop this argument and ultimately, had to nix it.
ponders's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
My advice to anyone who wants to read this book is to look up the “Concerning Language” sketch from the show A Bit of Fry and Laurie and every time Barthes gets extremely up his own ass, read it aloud in the rhythm and tone of Fry’s performance in that sketch.
There are a lot on really interesting ideas in here, especially as relate to our extremely image saturated culture. But you have to understand that Barthes is going to spend so much time talking about how he “just doesn’t get Photography” that you will want to throw your book across the room and exclaim “THEN WHY DID YOU WRITE A BOOK ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY.” That’s normal. That’s natural. If you can, push on. He’ll get somewhere in the end.
There are a lot on really interesting ideas in here, especially as relate to our extremely image saturated culture. But you have to understand that Barthes is going to spend so much time talking about how he “just doesn’t get Photography” that you will want to throw your book across the room and exclaim “THEN WHY DID YOU WRITE A BOOK ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY.” That’s normal. That’s natural. If you can, push on. He’ll get somewhere in the end.
casparb's review against another edition
4.0
Barthes managed to make an analysis of the philosophy of Photography incredibly tender.
I do love Barthes as a theorist - he's always self-aware enough to make things readable, one has a sense all the while that he writes on literature, or in this case, photography, because he loves it, not because he has IDEAS about it. (he does have clever ideas but one doesn't understand that to be why he writes).
His reflections on photography (an art? a science? neither? that is for the best) wind their way into a dissection of memory: his thoughts become autobiographical, as he attempts to recall his mother from amongst the pictures he has of her. This section is so delicate - I think much of the emotion here is informed by the knowledge that Barthes died the same week he finished this book, so when he ruminates upon his own death, photographs of himself, there's a deeply bittersweet sense that he knew (somehow) that it would be soon.
I suppose it's just not often one comes across a literary theorist that thinks of the heart.
I do love Barthes as a theorist - he's always self-aware enough to make things readable, one has a sense all the while that he writes on literature, or in this case, photography, because he loves it, not because he has IDEAS about it. (he does have clever ideas but one doesn't understand that to be why he writes).
His reflections on photography (an art? a science? neither? that is for the best) wind their way into a dissection of memory: his thoughts become autobiographical, as he attempts to recall his mother from amongst the pictures he has of her. This section is so delicate - I think much of the emotion here is informed by the knowledge that Barthes died the same week he finished this book, so when he ruminates upon his own death, photographs of himself, there's a deeply bittersweet sense that he knew (somehow) that it would be soon.
I suppose it's just not often one comes across a literary theorist that thinks of the heart.