ArchivesDiscovering Punctum
Punctum? Studium? What the hell…do these words mean?
If you have similar questions popping up in your mind than we are on the same page. Or I would rather say we could have been. And the reason for it is a book “Camera Lucida” by Roland Barthes.
What a reading! I read and re-read Roland Barthes’ book and found more questions than answers. There is something abstract and maybe philosophical in his writing. There, he attempts to explain two ways of seeing and feeling a photograph, its subject and context. What interesting is that according to Barthes there is no simple answer or clear definition of “How a photograph affects us”. He insists,
“Photography evades us. We might say that Photography is unclassifiable.”
In the book, Roland Barthes introduces two concepts of how we perceive photographic images, Studium and Punctum. The Studium “is some kind of a education that allows discovery of the operator”. In other words, this type of photography is more about liking rather than loving. And as Roland Barthes writes about it “I glance through them, I don’t recall them: no detail ever interrupts my reading. I am interested in them (as I am interested in the world), I do not love them.”
Stop right here, because the very last sentence holds a clear (at least so it seems to me) explanation of Studium. He writes “I do not love them” or in other words they are sort of general, without something that adds an unusual and unique twist or character.
Thus I would define Studium as something that does not capture my mind, something that invokes GENERAL associations and is more like “I looked at it and moved on without any special feelings”. It might be a very simplistic interpretation of Studium, however, in my opinion it explains why a viewer does not come back to see a photograph one more time. It is one out of many.
On the other hand, Punctum is more interesting to Barthes. Punctum is something that “Pricks and bruises”. Usually, we won’t find it in photographs that appear on newspaper pages, glossy covers of tabloids and advertising banners. Punctum might be found in the pictures that capture and hold our mind and breath. Punctum is more about unexpected. It is when an object becomes a subject in the eyes of a viewer. It is when Punctum strikes him by serving in a role of a magnet because it makes a viewer to come back. It is when one particular photograph is not just another out of many.
With all said and done, my interpretation of these two concepts might be too simple. Yet I think it is impossible to give crystal clear definitions of them as again “Photograph evades us”. We all see it from different perspectives and therefore it is up to us how we going to define these concepts.
I am not a professional photographer, I am a “user” and just like many of us when I look at most photographs and put them away because they don’t symbolize something special to me. Yes, there are photographs that captured very important moments of my life such as birthdays, graduation and so on. And I value them, however, I usually comment and put them back on a shelf where they collect dust. But then occasionally, I stumble upon a photograph that does capture something inside of me. It makes me to look at it, comment on it and then look again and again and again. It is like there is something special, unique and truthful in the subject. And when I stumble upon such photo I see more than shapes or silhouettes. I see the whole new interesting, dynamic story behind a static photograph.
