In my street photography workshops, we explore the elements that give a photograph emotional, intellectual, and social impact. We can break this down further into the concepts, Studium and Punctum. I’m expanding my workbook to include detailed explanations of these important aspects of art. I’m currently reading a not-so-well known book by philosopher Roland Barthes titled, Camera Lucida. Barthes gives one of the most detailed explorations of these concepts that I have come across. Here’s a small abstract from chapter 11:
“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. The studium is of the order of liking, not of loving; it mobilizes a half desire, a demi-volition; it is the same sort of vague, slippery, irresponsible interest one takes in the people, the entertainments, the books, the clothes one finds ‘all right.'”
Something to think about in our world of FaceBook likes…
Detroit 1250 – 2013
