Barthes on Studium and Punctum in Photography.

So we have to return to Roland Barthes then. And we will.

There has already been a section of Barthes’ connotation procedures on this blog. The number of posts in that section are some of the most sought.

What impresses me about Barthes is his ability to be very precise in some of his writings, and very obscure in others. Actually I prefer the obscure Barthes, because it gives me the change to fill in his obscurities with my own ideas (whatever they are worth). They give me a chance to close the gap of what Barthes writes, and what I think I understand of what he writes. And I like to think that I understand something.

His most impressive book is the one he wrote shortly before his untimely death in 1980. He was his by a truck on his way from a luncheon meeting with President François Mitterand. He died at a Parisian hospital a few hours later.

Barthes was a lover of photography. In his Camera Lucida, from 1980, he tried to redefine photography. Key notions in this book are studium and punctum, both notions invented for the occasion. By Barthes, and both reasonable obscure.

The aim of this blog post is roughly to “indicate” what Barthes had in mind by these two words, and try to show how they both can be useful both in analysing photography, and in general communication, as well. We might even adapt the words studium and punctum as barebones household words. Hmm .. we will see about that later. It depends on how this little investigation turns out.

Way back. One day Barthes discovered a couple of pictures in an illustrated magazine. Pictures shot by the Dutch press photographer Koen Wessing from a mission in Nicarague in 1979.They made him pause, and he went later form more pictures from the same photographer. One particular picture has been made famous by Barthes: the one with the two nuns walking alongside a demolished street where you find three soldiers present closer to the camera. (See some of Koen Wessing’s photographs here, indcuding several copies of the the one with the soldiers and the nuns, that Barthes talkes about).

He askes: “Did this photograph please me? Interest me? Intrigue me? Not even. Simply, it existed (for me) I understood at once that existence (its “adventure”) derived from the co-presence of two discontinuous elements, heterogeneous in that they did not belong to the same world (no need to proceed to the point of contrast): the soldiers and the nuns“. (page 23).

Above: Just an example of what Barthes might have in mind when speaking about studium as e.g. “the co-presence of two discontinuous elements, heterogeneous in that they did not belong to the same world”. Shot in Caen, France. Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven.

Above: Another example of what Barthes might have in mind when speaking about studium as e.g. “the co-presence of two discontinuous elements, heterogeneous in that they did not belong to the same world”. The discontinuous elements are more subtle is this photograph. Shot in Arles, France. Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven.

Barthes went on to investigate more photograph by the same photographer, and found that many had this same dual construction, the juxaposition of themes. And he goes on in his maybe most precise description of studium:

“What I feel about these photographs derives from from an average affect, almost from a certain training. I did not know a French word which might account for this kind of human interest, but I believe this word exists in Latin: it is studium, which doesn’t mean, at least not immediately, “study,” but application to a thing, taste for someone, i kind of general, enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without special acuity. It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in studium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the settings, the actions”. (page 26)

And in the very next paragraph, Barthes goes on to lay bare his next key notion: “The second element will break (or punctuate) the studium. This time it is not I who seek it out (as I invest the field of the studium with my sovereign consciousness), it is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me. A Latin word exists to designate this wound, this prick, this mark made by a pointed instrument: the word suits me all the better in that it also refers to the notion of punctuation, and because the photographs I am speaking of are in effect punctuated, sometimes even speckled with these sensitive point; precisely, these marks, these wounds are so many points. This second element which will disturb the studium I shall therefore call punctum; for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole – and also a cast of the dice. A photograph’s punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me”. (pages 26 and 27).

A bit later on in the text, Barthes talks about studium as matter of grasping the photographers intention, of entering into harmony with them, of approve or disapprove of them. But also to try to understand them. Studium is a kind of education trying to bring forward the point of view, the idea and the context of the photograph(er). Basically an intellectual discipline which outcome  springs from the capacity for understanding held by the spectator.

Studium operates in the arena of liking, while punctum operated in the arena of loving, as Barthes indicates.

There are, of course, much more to this than these quotations from Barthes’ Camera Lucida will reveal. For those really interested in Barthes’ thoughts, and his work on photography in particular, the hard way is to get the book and read it. Then make up your own mind about what studium and punctum really are all about. The intentions here are more down to earth: how can these to notions be used, if they can be used at all, to understand photography, visual messages and maybe even contribute to the wider understanding of communication? Even useful for analysing and understanding advertising? To accomplish this I will probably have to bend the notions a bit, but as Barthes himself was a prime bender, we should have no problem with that.

The tricky thing is not pointing to, and elaboration on photographs as examples of studium. All photographs can, in fact, be considered as studiums. Definitely the challenge is finding and explaining the arrows Barthes is talking about as punctums, those accidents that pricks and makes small holes in you. Particularly if you insist on these holes being of an objective character. Luckily Barthes does not insists on any objectively here. Punctums are private and personal, which makes our task much more easy, but on the other hand it makes punctums less operative for communication analysis. What is barebones’ stand on this, then? Do, for instance, the two pictures above contain punctums? If so, where and what are they? What and where could they be? Well, the fact that you start looking for punctums at all misses the point. Punctums hit you, so go looking for something that might hit you is moving the scene from punctum to studium. Punctums are also casts of the dice.

What does Barthes have to say about this punctum? Let see if we are able to track it down a bit. Often, he says, the punctum is a detail, a partial object. Could be a dirt road as in a old photograph by Kertesz; a belt or the strapped pumps as in a an old picture by James van der Zee; Andy Warhols nails in a shot by Duane Michaels; a group of nuns that just happened to be there as in the shot already mentioned by the Dutch photographer Koen Wessing.

And more: What also seems to be important is that the punctum has the ability to be expansive. It can take over the whole picture. Dominate it. Punctums are not intentionally put there by the photographer. Barthes talks about the photographers “second sight” by just being there, shooting, at the right moment.

So then, punctums are obscure and rather individual. Does this mean that they are non existent? Not so, but it might mean that it is useless to look for them as deliberate construct to direct the gaze, interest and meaning in a photograph, or other visual message. Punctums are random – if at all. In an operative environment like barebones communications, punctums will be of little use.

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NB! Just to let you know: I don’t think that Barthes’ studium is restricted to photographs that in some way contain “the co-presence of two discontinuous elements”. I do however think, that photographs that contain such elements sometimes tells a more vivid story/adventure, than photographs that do not contain such elements. And I do believe, that is was photographs like these, that triggered Barthes into the studium/punctum reflections.

What you may also want to know, is that Barthes in Camera Lucida explicitly refers to the phenomenological method (and Edmund Husserl) as inspirational for his investigation into photography. See the book chapter 8.

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Roland Barthes: Camera Lucida, Vintage Books, London 2000. Translated by Richard Howard. For full information on the book see Library Thing. Page references are made to this version of the book.

 

If you have read this post you should also read Studium and Punctum in Camera Lucida.

Picturing The Communication Process

Picturing the communication proces. It that possible? Why not?

The picture below has already been posted to this site once. I seem to revert to it from time to time. It has something to it that not easily can be described. A couple of days ago I finally grasped what is was. Or “some of” what it was. It is a picture illustrating the communication process. Easy as that, and I really wonder why it took me so long to realise it.

Here comes the picture.

Let’s look at this pictures in more detail using some of the tools laid bare on this blog in earlies posts.

Denotations:

Denotations are the picture basics. That content that we all are likely to agree on. The basic stepping stones of the image. What, literally, do we have? We have parts of a large room. The wall framing the image left hand and right hand sides. The roof is indicated, and the floor is clearly a major part of the physical spread of the photograph.

At the back of the room there is a large class wall leading out to the exterior. A lake, trees and more trees. Laves and trunks. The glass wall, which is floor-to-ceiling high is bloken by vertical (wooden) poles to enhance the vertical impression.

In the middle some kind of cylinder.  Glass of plastic cylinder. In both cases transparent. Two people look into the cylinder from opposite sides. Facing each other. The closes persons seems to have oversized shoes on. The other person is blurred by the glass or plastic so you can only guess that this is a person. It is more of an indication than a precise outline, but we are not in doubt that it is a person. The second person is intended.

The camera angle is downwards, and the lens clearly a wide one that distorts the natural perspective making the parts of the foreground look bigger than the objects further away.

These are the most obvious denotations. There are more, and they could all be described in greater detail, but this is sufficient for what is need here.

Connotations:

And now to the connotations. Those second layer contents that always are there to add to the reading and understanding of a message. As shown elsewhere on the blog, and in the wording of Roland Barthes, you can talk about connotation procedures to get a grip of how you deliberately can try to work specific connotations into a message.

I will treat them pretty overall here only stating that to me this photograph comes with a content of life, playfulness, curiosity and ambiguity. It is a happy and youthful picture, as well.

I am sure that you will read, if not identical, then somewhat similar connotations into the image. And maybe even a greater number, since the shift of layer from denotation to connotation brings with it a shift from objective reading to subjective reading. Personal taste, understanding and preferences are to a larger extent at play here.

So far so good.

Symbolism:

Are there more to it? As indicated in the blog title there should be: picturing the communications process. Call this a third layer, call it a level inherent in the denotations and connotations combined. Call is basically whatever you like since labelling is not the name of the game here. The more I looked at the picture I found it to be a good illustration of the communication process. To me it symbolises the communication process. Why? And how?

One way of defining communication is by pointing to a sender and a receiver of a message. This is communication defined in its simplest form and it makes the point needed here. The person in the foreground of the photograph is the sender of the message, and he is also the receiver of a message. So is the person on the far side of the cylinder. Thus the transmission and receiving of a message is a circular affair always in motion. Partly transparent to the observer. This continuous movement is filtered by the individual’s outlook of the world. The way he or she, in phenomenological terms, intends the world.

When using the word intention here it is not in the ordinary sense of the word. I am not talking about intent as in the intention of going to the movies. In the phenomenological world view the meaning of the word intention differs from that, and the term really brings us to the core theme of phenomenology. It is called intentionality, and is that core notion that sets phenomenology apart from anything else that you have ever read about or heard about. Intentionality is all embracing. That is why, when you look at the basic barebones resource diagram below you will find phenomenology is the rock that everything rests on. Including phenomenology itself.

Speaking about different theoretical frameworks phenomenology embraces gestalt psychology, semiology/semiotics, naturalism, experiential results, hermeneutics and whatever framework you can think of. By that, and this is important, the barebones communication universe constitutes a completely new and integreted way of combining, handling and analysing bits and pieces of communication. And of construction such pieces. Like in this case: a simple, maybe not so simple, photography.

For a shoutcut to barebones communication resources, please go here.

What is intentionality?

Intentionality is the basic idea that consciuosness always is the consciousness of something. The implication is that consciousness never operated in a vacuum or towards blank spots. When I, or you, look at the picture above we always grasps something. That something might be the overall picture, a detail in it, or simply something that are not directly present in the picture.

Alas, when the two guys in the picture stare at each other they stare at something. That something may be specifically present like the guy on the other side of the tube, or it may not be present. It could for instance be an imaginary guy only present in the viewers phantasy. As a mental picture.

That something, that is always there, will be dependent upon a set of social and phychological or physical factors. Things are filtered based on factors just mentioned.  So the glass tube, the glass or plastic cylinder, reflects the idea of looking through filters. There are, as you can see in the picture, a senders filter, and there are a receivers filter.  Things are communication your way, and are received your way as well. This filtering sometimes makes communication difficult, as we all know.

Presence and absence

When there is presence there is always also absence, and as there always are presence there will always be absence. It is one of the major benefits of phenomenology to have shown this. Does this sound cryptic to you? It should not. Just take a look at the picture once more.

What do you see this time? Well, here are some of the things I see. I see a wall, I see a window, I see some trees, I see two people staring into a glass tube. This must then be the present elements.

On the other hand here is what I don’t see: I don’t see the back of the walls, I don’t see the fishes in the water, I don’t see the birds in the trees, I don’t see the feet in the shoes, I don’t see the surrounding landscape. These are then the absent elements that makes this picture understandible to me. As they will to you. There is no way of escaping this.

I will dwell on this aspect to a larger extent in later posts. My point here is simply this: when you communicate what you don’t say is as important as what you do say. When you show, like in  a picture, what you don’t show is a strong contender for meaning. Everyone knows how loud a silence can sound, how speaking a white wall can be.

However, and this is my postulate, very few of us are really good in controlling absent elements in the same way we think that we control present elements.

Apart from a short sum-up I will, accordingly, say no more, and leave you to filter in or to filter out the vaste areas of absences in the continuation of this blog post   Only you can do that.

Cheers.

Illustration and photograph on this blog are copyrighted by the blog author Knut Skjærven. Must not be copied, downloaded or used in any form without the prior, written consent of the copyright holder.

phenomenological-method

Berlin Place2Be

Kurfürstendamm. © Knut Skjærven

Many thanks to Leica for asking me to participate in the series Berlin Place2Be as a promotion for the Leica D-Lux 5. I wrote a short article. I took some pictures.

This is actually one of the first shots I made with the D-Lux 5 after arriving in Berlin April 2, 2011. This couple was standing at the same spot for a looong time. I could walk around them, cross the street and come back and take more pictures. They could have been hit by a truck and still be standing there. Who knows, maybe they still are. Italians I presume.

You  can read the full article here.

In the article there is mentioned of a project Berlin Black And White. That blog is a spin off of this blog. Just wanted you to know

Good luck with your own photographic project. If you don’t have one, get one.

Month of Photography in Berlin

Berlinische Galerie.© Knut Skjærven

If you are in Berlin during October and November, you most certainly should visit some of the about 150 different photo exhibitions that goes on during The European Month of Photography.

There are many excellent exhibitions around. Among them are the two shows at Berlinische Galerie at Alte Jacobstrasse. Works by Emil Otto Hoppé and famous street photographer Arno Fischer can be seen there. Both exhibitions are well worth a visit.

Go to Berlin Black And White for more photography from Berlin.

Photograph’s Three Objects

Screenshot from Phenomenology and Photography.

There is a new and interesting post on Phenomenoloy And Photography. Please click the link to go there.  Or click the image.

Cartier-Bresson, Burri, Sander and …

Brass Behavior. © Knut Skjærven.

A couple of years back I started publishing a photograph every time I loaded a new post to barebones communication. Eventually, I also started getting more serious about photography not only shooting left and right, upstairs and downstairs. Family and cute dogs.

This summer I started a proper photographic project called Berlin Black and White. Today that project holds 212 pictures from Berlin. There are more photographs to come. An exhibition and a book is also in the pipeline.

I couple of weeks ago I was approached by Frieder Zimmerman and Bernd Korte. They operate a German photosite, and they do their own publishing. “Are you interested in showing some of your pictures at our site?” Frieder asked me. I said “yes, selbstverständlich.” Now we are up running with 27 of the 212 pictures from Berlin Black and White.

Please visit the site at F11 photography. Click Expo 1 to get to the portfolio. The virtual exhibition will run from October 1, 2010, plus two months.

If is not everyday, by the way, I get mentioning in the same text as celebrities like Henri Cartier-Bresson, René Burri and August Sander. I don’t know how it is with you? I am honoured .

I thought I would let you know.

Here is the newsletter from 30 September 2010 (nr. 24):

Liebe Freunde unserer Website F11 photography,

Straßenfotografie ist die Kunst zur rechten Zeit am rechten Ort zu sein. Als distanzierter Beobachter doch nah genug zu sein, um mit Bildern Geschichten zu erzählen oder sogar selbst Teil der Geschichte zu werden. Straßenfotografie ist nicht die Jagd nach Schnappschüssen mit einem Teleobjektiv, sondern das Erfassen und Darstellen von Situationen. Große Meister haben diese Form der Fotografie zur Kunst erhoben. Henri Cartier-Bresson, René Burri, in gewissem Maß auch August Sander, sind berühmte Fotografen, die in diesem Zusammenhang immer wieder genannt und gezeigt werden. Viel Geld müsste man ausgeben, wenn man eines Ihrer Originale kaufen wollte.

Auf der Suche nach neuen Talenten haben wir Ihnen im Juni 2008 an dieser Stelle den Amerikaner, Phil DeVries, mit seinen eindrucksvollen Bildern aus New Orleans vorgestellt. Heute freuen wir uns besonders, Knut Skjaerven, als Norweger in Kopenhagen lebend, zu präsentieren.

Knut schreibt über sich selbst: “Ich habe Phenomenology und visual arts studiert. Ernsthaft zu fotografieren habe ich erst vor wenigen Jahren begonnen. Und damit meine ich, bei einem Thema zu bleiben, einen Stil zu entwickeln, der Wiedererkennbarkeit ermöglicht.

“Berlin Black and White” ist eigentlich mein erster Versuch, ein wichtiges fotografisches Projekt umzusetzen. Dabei macht es diese Stadt mit seiner Offenheit, seiner Multikultur einfach, fotografische Vorstellungen umzusetzen.”

Wir freuen uns, einige Bilder von Knut Skaerven zeigen zu dürfen und wünschen Ihnen genügend Ruhe und Muße beim Anschauen auf F11 photography . Klicken Sie danach bitte auf Expo 1.

Wenn Sie mehr über die Arbeit von Knut Skjaerven erfahren wollen, schauen Sie mal in seinen Blog: Berlin Black and White .

Ihr F11 photography – Team

Frieder Zimmermann und Bernd Korte

Dear friends of our website F11 photography!

Street photography is the ability to be on the spot on time and though being a distant observer to be close enough to tell stories with pictures or even becoming a part of the story oneself. This does not mean taking snapshots with a tele lens, but realizing and presenting specific moments. Works of famous photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, René Burri and August Sander have always been quoted and shown in this context. We would have to afford quite a bit to buy one of their originals.

Looking for new talents F11 has already presented the American Phil DeVries with his impressive New Orleans street-pictures in 2008. Today we are very glad to introduce to you Knut Skjaerven, a Norwegian, living in Copenhagen.

He says about himself: “I have studied phenomenology and visual arts and have become a serious photographer for a few years only. For me this means to stick to a theme, to develop a personal style of recognition for others.

“Berlin Black and White” actually is my first attempt to realize such a project. Berlin with its cosmopolitan and multicultural character is an easy and thrilling offer to realize my photographic ideas.”

We are looking forward to show some of Knut Skjaerven’s photos and do hope you’ll be able to watch them with leisure on F11 photography, clicking Expo 1.

In case you ‘d like to get more information about his work you should call up his Blog

“Berlin Black and White”.

Your F11 photography team

Bernd Korte and Frieder Zimmermann

Studium and Punctum in Camera Lucida.

Dirty Dancing. Copyright 2010: Knut Skjærven.

I needed to re-read Roland Barthes‘ Camera Lucida from 1980.  I use an English translation in a print from 2000. The numbers you find in brackets refer to pages in that version of the book.

There were certain things that I needed to check up on. What does that book actually say about studium and punctum in photography? What was Barthes’ original ideas?

In handling these issues this is the first regular post on phenomenology and photography, this blog. There will be more of such notes. I label (and tag) these posts “working notes” since that is exactly what they are. They are private notes, that I have chosen to make public so they might be of use to others as well. Very slightly adapted.

The notes will all be new, and presented here as I make them.

The specific issues I wanted to investigate were if studiums and punctums (as Barthes use these words) are general qualities that you will find in/with every photographs? Or are they, on the contrary, qualities that goes only with certain photographs.

Or maybe the terms should be understood in different ways all together?

On Images

Roland Barthes: “I see photographs everywhere, like everyone else, nowadays; they come from the world to me, without my asking; that are only “images,” their mode of appearance is heterogeneous.” (16)

And then Barthes continues:”Yet, among those which has seen selected, evaluated, approved, collected in albums or magazines and which had thereby passed through the filter of culture, I realized that some provoked tiny jubilations … and that others, on the contrary, were so indifferent to me that by dint of seeing them multiply, like some weed, I felt a kind of aversion towards them, even of irritation.” (16)

There is, it seems, a distinction between photographs that invoke tiny jubilations and those that are indifferent to Barthes or even invoke irritation.

Barthes says: “I decided then to take as a guide for my new analysis the attraction I felt for certain photographs.” (18)

In this task Barthes borrows “something from phenomenology’s project and something from it language.” (20). I will, however, leave that discussion to another time.

Related to the photograph above, at this level of discussion, it will be a question if it evokes a tiny jubilation, or simply is an indifferent image. That is for you, the observer, to decide.

On Studium

Barthes then enters into an analysis of couple of photographs from the Dutch photographer Koen Wessing:

“What I feel about these photographs derives from an average affect, almost from a certain training. I did not know a French word which might account for this kind of human interest, but I believe this word exists in Latin: it is studium, which does not mean, at least not immediately, “study”, but application to a thing, taste for someone, a kind of general, enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without special acuity. (26)

And: “It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in studium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the setting, the actions.” (26)

Related to the photograph above studium would be issues to the where, the when and the what of the photograph. Among many other things that culturally do, and could, relate to it.

On Punctum

That much for studium. Now, what does Barthes has to say about punctum? Its comes here:

“The second element will break (or punctuate) the studium. This time is it not I who seek it out (as I invest the field of the studium with my sovereign consciousness),  it is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out f it like an arrow, and pierces me. A Latin word exist to designate this wound, this prick, this mark made by a pointed instrument: the word suits me all the better in that is also refers to the notion of punctuation, and because the photographs I am speaking of are in effect punctuated, sometimes even speckled with these sensitive points; precisely these marks are so many points.” (26-27)

Further: “This second element which will disturb the studium I shall therefore call punctum; for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole – and also the cast of the dice. A photograph’s punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me). (26-27)

And he continues: “Many photographs are, alas, inert under my gaze. But even among those which have some existence in my eyes, most provoke only a general and, so to speak,polite interest: they have no punctum in them: they please or displease me without pricking me: they are invested with no more than studium.The studium is that very wide field of unconcerned desire, of various interest, of inconsequential taste: I like / I don’t like”. (27)

Related to the photograph above punctum could be almost anything. Punctum is a capacity that hits you, and not anything that could be read out of the image as part of the studium. Normally it would be a detail that speaks to you. And it would be very individual what/who is speaking and what is said.

Conclusions

I am not going to take this note any further.

I was interested in seeing if studium and punctum, by Barthes, were initiated as concepts of general qualities inherent in all photographs. It seems that they were not. They arespecial qualities that come with certain pictures and certain attitudes.

And what is more: Images that qualify as objects worthy of studium, will not necessarily “contain” punctums. Barthes is very clear about that.

There also seems to be images that fall completely outside the studium area: those “merely images” that the author simply is indifferent to. However, this does not mean that these images are without interest for everybody. Barthes may be indifferent to images that might have quite a different status for others. Even if Barthes would not have invested in those images, others might. This is a very important point.

We have, however, to be a bit cautious when reading Camera Lucida. Questions have to be asked. Is Barthes, for instance, talking about qualities in a) the object, in the b) subject or in c) the subjects reading of photographs? He is, in my opinion, talking about  c) the reading of the photographs. This is quite consistent with phenomenology, or should I say intentionality. That discussion will, however, be left to another time.

Barthes’ stand on these issues could be phrased like this: Studiums are investments, punctums are gifts. Investments do not grant gifts. But they don’t exclude them either.

Some people don’t invest and they don’t get gifts. Others do/get both.

That’s all . Thanks.

Roland Barthes: Cameras Lucida, Vintage Books, London 2000.

Library Thing.

Don’t forget to follow the other blogs in the barebones blog universe. Here are links to the picture blogs: Berlin Black and White, Photos of  The Danes.

Please be aware that this post was originally posted to Phenomenology and Photography.

Handbook of Phenomenological Aesthetics.

Marlboro Man

There is a new post on Phenomenology and Photography. It is about a new book from German Springer: Handbook of Phenomenological Aesthetics. An impressive work. Click image to go there.

Enjoy.

The Photographer´s Eye.

Photographer's Eye. Copyright 2010: Knut Skjærven

“The first thing a photographer learned was that photography dealt with the actual; he had not only to accept this fact, but to treasure it: unless he did, photography would defeat him. He learned that the world itself is an artist of incomparable inventiveness, and to recognize its best works and moments, to anticipate them, to clarify them and make them permanent, requires intelligence both acute and supply.”

John Szarkowski: The Photographer’s Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2009.

Barthes on Studium and Punctum

Screen Shot from Phenomenology and Photography

You may have noticed that there is a new post on Phenomenology and Photography. Click the link, or click the picture above to go there.  The post is about what Barthes actually meant with the terms studium and punctum applied to photography. You will find the answers in that post.

Enjoy.

NEW BLOG on Phenomenology and Photography.

Sporting Life.

There is a new blog. It is called Phenomenology and Photography. It is in the very early stages, but I want to invite you in already now so you can follow it from the start. Bookmark it , or even better, subscribe to it. Every new post will sent to you directly. You subscribe from the right hand side column at front page on the new blog. Click the image above to go there. Or click this link.

It is going to deal with what is promised in its name: phenomenology and photography. Not as separate units, but as executions of the same basic ideas.

Phenomenology and Photography is the latest addition to the barebones family of blogs. Now there are four family members. There is barebones communication (this blog), which is the original barebones blog and the mother of them all. Then there are two pure photobogs; Berlin Black and White and Photos of the Danes. Both of these ware initiated in June 2010 and will be growing with more pictures.

The four blogs belong together. I am not going into any details with this, but you will find that that they overlap. The two photoblos are photographic executions of the visions set forth in barebones communication and even (to come) more specifically in Phenomenology and Photography. So, you will have to wait and see what happens on this new blog. As it develops.

The idea is to move in very precisely on the area of phenomenology and photography. And to do that with new means and new visions. It will be a source of ideas and executions.

There will be no program declaration for the new blog beyond what is said here. You will basically be on your own like any other human being. So go get it; the new blog and  that sporting life .

Enjoy.

While Waiting for Godot.

Berlin Black and White. Screenshot.

While doing a bit of waiting for Godot, I have set up a new blog Berlin Black and While. Please visit.

Maybe you have noticed that I have quite a lot of photographs from Berlin on barebones communication already? Why is this so since Berlin is not even my home town?

The answer is simple. Of all the cities I have visited Berlin is definitely the best I have found for photography. (And, by the way, it is not that far away).

Berlin is large enough to still explore every time I go there. Both spaces and places are really good, but most of all are the frictions of history still very much alive there. You can see that in the architecture  and you can sense it when you move around in the city. You can see it in the people.

Say it briefly: Berlin is an extremely photogenic city. My cameras love it. Very much so.

This is why there now is a special photo blog on Berlin. Black and White it is.

Enjoy.