Response to Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida

To begin, I’d like to mention that while reading excerpts from Roland Barthes,’ Camera Lucida, I was struck by the language Barthes used to address the reader. Barthes has a personable voice to explain and define his journey and exploration of the “essence” of a photograph. He eloquently balances both the critical theory surrounding the practice of photography (and other art practices, such as painting) with his own emotional response to the practice or understanding of photography. For example, in chapter three, Barthes states:

What does my body know of Photography? I observed that a photograph can be the object of three practices (or of three emotions, or of three intentions): to do, to undergo, to look.  (Barthes 9)

He goes on to define the Operator as the Photographer, the Spectator as ourselves, or those of us who participate in the act of “looking” at photographs, and the Spectrum  as the target or the “referent.” In these two sentences, Barthes not only defines the three theoretical intentions of the act of taking a photograph, but also places himself within this practice from observing what he understands, from presumably acting at some point in his life as the Operator, the Spectator, and the Referent.

In this same respect, I would like to respond to Camera Lucida with a critical, yet also personal voice.  In the last few chapters, Barthes describes the experience of going through some of his mother’s photographs shortly after she had passed away.  He explains that he wasn’t necessarily looking for the exact, “right” photograph that would portray her essence, but no photograph in the bunch necessarily “spoke” to him directly in this manner, until he found, what he calls, the Winter Garden Photograph. In this photograph he sees his mother at the age of five, standing with her brother outside of the house the two children grew up in. The photograph resonated with Barthes; her expression, gesture, and/or pose reflected her presence, her essence to him as he knew her.

            This particular description of Barthes finding the Winter Garden photograph resonated with me and my own artistic endeavors. A few years ago I was visiting my estranged, paternal grandfather, who I had not seen in seventeen years, to interview him (along with other family members) about the demise and eventual death of my severely alcoholic father. I was also interested in learning more about past ancestors, since I had no relationship with ancestors on my father’s side of the family or “stories” about them. Most of the photographs were interesting enough, but nothing “spoke” to me until I came across a photograph of a woman named Alice Gorman Vence (as pictured in this blog). I was deeply moved by this photograph because I had never seen a photograph of an ancestor within whom I found a resemblance to myself (my mother was adopted, so I have no biological knowledge of my mother’s side of the family).  There is something about Alice’s facial structure (her raised cheekbones, perhaps her eyes) that I found similar to mine.  Her hair was the same color (and amusingly pinned up in the same fashion in which I wore my hair).  Alice, in her own “essence,” also represented an “essence” and connection within me, the viewer.

            Alice became an indirect subject in my film that I was working on at the time, and has continued to be a “character” that I develop and use in various art pieces.  At this point, I’d like to focus on my subject, Alice, with a “critical” eye in relation to Barthes’ ideas about the “effigy.” He describes the photographic ritual as a “social game.” He describes the game as such:

…I pose, I know I am posing, I want you to know that I am posing, but… this additional message must in no way alter the precious essence of my individuality: what I am, apart from any effigy.  (Barthes 11)

            Barthes is willing to play the “social game” of posing for the camera, but does not want the spectator of that photograph to assign an essence to his individual self. For example, perhaps a photograph was taken of him and he was smiling, yet slightly turned away from the camera. One could assume he was acting coy or shy in that moment, but the overall essence of Barthes himself as an individual is certainly not just purposely bashful. That one representation of himself, that one effigy, does not sum up his entire existence or individual essence.

            In terms of creating and developing my “character” named “Alice,” it is essential that I work, in a somewhat backwards sense, from this one “effigy” I have to understand Alice.  Why was she turning slightly away from the camera?  What human condition was she enduring to not “smile for the camera.”  Why did she choose to wear a black dress? Since I know nothing about this woman, I am forced (artistically speaking) to experience her essence through this photographic representation, to imagine and then create what her unique individuality was.  In my film, she was the keeper of memories, and thus the teller of memories, which in reciprocity represented me, the artist.  I continue to develop and create Alice as I hope she would want to be represented.  Unlike Barthes’ notion of not being able to reproduce the Winter Garden Photograph for the reader (because the reader would only interpret it as what he calls an “indifferent” picture),  I find great responsibility to reproducing Alice’s picture in an attempt to justify and honor Alice’s “essence.”  She was a forgotten, vague ancestor whom I am resurrecting.