ku # 528 ~ that accident that pricks me
Monday, July 14, 2008 at 10:46AM 
Marshy evening dew * click to embiggenWhen last we spoke in earnest, it was on the topic of "the real" and how that relates to photographs. As many of you already know, I am a firm believer in photography's ability to illustrate and illuminate much that is real and true. That said, however, this past week I came to new / expanded understanding of the real / true in pictures.
For the past 7 months, I have been viewing pictures of my new grandson, Helmut. Helmut lives across the continent in Seattle and, until a week and a half ago, we had never met face-to-face. So, via the web, I followed him in pictures as he progressed from a newborn to a 7 month-old. As I now know, the pictures certainly and accurately portrayed Helmut's visage and, from my personal experience with my other grandson, Hugo, I could intuit, with the visual aid of the pictures, a modest amount of Helmut's personality.
After spending a week with Helmut in the flesh, all of the pictures I had viewed up until that point took on adding meaning and understanding. The pictures I made of him are now rich with "detail". Pictures of Helmut are now incredibly "real and true". 
Now he's real • click to embiggenNow, there is a specificity that accompanies the previous generality contained in the pictures of him. There is a heightened sense of the specifics of Helmut in addition to the general sense of "infant" or "baby".
Lest you think that this is just the babbling of an infatuated grandparent, let me point out, photography-wise, that this heightened experience is exactly what Roland Barthes was writing about in his Camera Lucida re: studium and punctum:
studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph - the general, and, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it - the specific.
Barthes went so far as to state:
The second and far more interesting element for the spectator is punctum. There are two kinds of punctum. The first is that which is "that accident which pricks, bruises me." It is the unintentional detail that could not not be taken, and that "fills the whole picture." Barthes says there is no rule that can be applied to the existence of studium and punctum within a photo except that "it is a matter of co-presence." These are the photos which take our breath away for some reason that was completely unintended by the photographer (or by the subject, for that matter). It is at the moment when the punctum strikes that the photograph will "annihilate itself as medium to be no longer a sign but the thing itself."
Now, I know that a picture of Helmut is not Helmut. But I also know that, especially now, the pictures are not only a true and accurate image of him but also that the feelings and emotions I experience when viewing a picture of him are as true, real, and complex as those I experience with him in the flesh.
Any questions? Thoughts? Ideas?
Reader Comments (3)
Does this new found reality only allow you to more deeply experience these photographs? Or does it also allow you to take better photographs?
This seems like a great parallel to landscape photographers that are tourists vs. those that live and breath the landscapes that they photograph.
I should have said... vs. those that live, breath and understand on a deep down level the interactions taking place in the landscapes that they photograph.
explains why family snapshots are forever popular - g.eastman made his fortune riding this wave.