Camera Lucida By Roland Barthes

Since more than one hundred and seventy years ago, photography technology has been invented, such a small piece of photo has undertaken the great task of recording historical images in human history. As a result, during these hundred years, authors has started writing photography. It is undeniable that most of them describe photography techniques, such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO, etc. While still, in some great photography books, it is difficult to find any description about photography skills, such as the masterpiece, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. The author, Roland Barthes, a French literary theorist, semiotics and structuralist, apparently referred the photography to the metaphysical height to think in the book. The essay is going to demonstrate my understanding about Barthes book, mainly focusing on his two elements, “studium” and “punctum”; moreover, relating to my photographic experience as well. Overall, Barthes uses the first person narrative to express his thinking, reflections, attitude and observations on the nature of photography. The book is divided …show more content…
He chose a Latin word, studium, to describe “application to a thing, taste for someone, a kind of general, enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without special acuity.” (Roland Barthes) The word “studium” here is not about “study”. It means the superficial meaning of the image, which is derived from the universal knowledge of various disciplines and fields, as well as the social and cultural background. In other words, “studium”, refers that the meaning, conveyed by photographers through the image, can be understood in at a glance, without thinking by the viewers. “The studium is that very wide field of unconcerned desire, of various interest, of inconsequential taste: I like/ I don’t like. The stadium is of the order of liking, not of loving.” (Roland