Photography

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the criticism of Roland Barthes as applied to the photographic image and the concepts of the stadium and the punctum as they help explain the effect of an image on the viewer. The paper then applies them to two images from John Szarkowski's book "Looking at Photographs," suggesting where Barthes may not fully explain the way photographs reach the viewer and how they carry meaning.

From the Paper:

"The photographic image has been described as a momentary capturing of reality, based on the false dictum that the camera never lies. In truth, the camera may lie, and it may alter "reality" in the process of capturing it. Critic Roland Barthes has written extensively on the meaning of the image and on how the image achieves its effects on the viewer, and so how the image conveys meaning. Meaning can also be imposed by the viewer, and the process is not always easy to sort out by those who want to know which came first. The concepts offered by Barthes will be discussed first, followed by an application of them to two images from John Szarkowski's book Looking at Photographs."

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