In Camera Lucida, Barthes discusses the philosophy behind photographs. He contemplates how photographs are an infinite stream of copies of a unique event that can not be replicated. He uses this idea as a justification as to why photographs can not be categorized. Although there exists the categorization of the subjects: still life, landscapes, etc., these are not categorizations of the the photographs themselves.

There are many different kinds of relationships that we, as people, can have with photography. Personally, I would section then into three main ones: one as the photographer, one as the audience, or one as the subject. This goes hand-in-hand with Barthe’s divisions: the Operator, the Spectator, and the Spectrum.

Barthes speaks in depth of being the subject of an image, the Spectrum itself. He contemplates the version of himself that is created when he is aware that a lens is “watching him”. In an intersting manner, he compares the taking of a photograph with death, as the finger clicking is also the one pulling the trigger. This is an intersting concept: a photograph itself does, technically, mark the death of a moment; as soon as the picture is taken, that moment has passed and is gone forever. In this aspect, Barthes could be speaking of the death of the version of himself that is created at the time of that pose: gone with the flash of the camera.

The relationship most common between people and photographs is that of the audience, or the Spectators. As Barthes states, we see photographs everywhere, and some trigger certain emotions deep within us. These can vary from positive, such as inspiration and joy, to negative, such as aversion. Regardless, many images have the potential to make them strong. Many of these emotions and/or reactions, however, exist in the subconcious. And it is through the vieweing of images, that they are brought back into the light.

Lastly, the relationship I can speak the less on is that of the photographer, or the Operator. I too, like Barthes, am not a professional. Nevertheless, whenever I take a picture, it feels less about myself and more about the moment I am capturing. Barthes talks about how the image that the Operator sees is not that that is then observed by the Spectator. Operators are restrained to the small key-hole, where the moment of the image is framed. Nowadays, I believe this separations has changed. We take many images with our phones, which are seen then almost identically by ourselves and others in the camera roll. Does this lack of difference merge the Operator’s and the Spectator’s views? Are we loosing something with this assimilation?

Gerz’s combination of photographs, graphics, and text was very intersting. Apart from the text he included, there was also some text in the pieces themselves. This makes sense in the context of story art, as the photograph itself tells some story. However, I feel these creations don’t compare with Barthes’s statements. He speaks of the unique moment captured by a photograph, by Gerz’s story arts are more of a fabricated nature.