SID: 0603681 Evaluate approaches to photography as argued by Bourdieu in Photography: A Middlebrow Art and by Barthes in Camera Lucida through

an address to your own family photographs.

This essay will evaluate the approaches of photography as argued by Bourdieu and Barthes in the books Photography: A Middle-brow Art and Camera Lucida, respectively. For the main body of the text, I will draw on photographs from my own personal collection and analyse them according to one or each of the approaches (the focus on the two approaches when applied to each photograph will differ due to the content of the image). This will lead to a comprehensive understanding of both approaches, leading to the conclusion that whilst they address different elements of the image, Bourdieu and Barthes are both essential in understanding how we relate to the photograph and Photography.

Bourdieu said that ...the aesthetic of the great mass of photographic works may be legitimately reduced, without being reductive, to the sociology of the groups that produce them (Bourdieu, 2007: 98). For the purpose of this text, this quote summarises the primary way in which Bourdieu approaches the analysis of a photograph, focusing largely on the images themselves and how they relate to social constructs (or social constructionism). One of the most important features of a photograph, for Bourdieu, is the pose, the ability to offer a regulated image of oneself, imposing the rules of ones own perception (Bourdieu, 2007: 83). For him, the lens is symbolic of society and its expectations of etiquette and behaviour. Therefore, the roles of the father, the m other, daughter and son are clearly assigned and the importance of the family unit is emphasised. Bourdieu focuses on

SID: 0603681 the how and why of camera use in the context of sociology (Bourdieu, 2007: 13). In effect, he focuses on the particular photograph.

In contrast, Barthes is primarily concerned with how the individual image relates to the definition of Photography itself. In his book, Camera Lucida, Barthes states that the name of Photographys noeme will therefore be: that-has-been or again: the intractable... it has been here, and yet immediately separated; it has been absolutely, irrefutably present, and yet already deferred (Barthes, 2000: 77). For Barthes, the essence of any given photograph is a certificate of existence.

Barthes, however, rejects the notion that Photography can be understood simply through sociology or semiotics. He divides the photograph into two separate elements; the studium and the punctum. While the former refers to a general, intellectual interest that is present in all photographs, being generated by the field, the latter is the wound that punctures the studium, the detail that elevates the photograph and provokes an emotional response. Barthes did not consider the punctum to be present in all photographs.

The importance of the pose and its ties to respecting oneself and demanding respect (Bourdieu, 2007: 80) is demonstrated in Image 1 (see appendix). Here, we see a group of four siblings posing for a school photograph. Bourdieu notes that the popular aesthetic, both in the photograph and the judgement by the spectator, adheres to the social functions conferred upon photography (Bourdieu, 2007: 80). Clearly, by the environment and clothing, we can deduct that this is a school photograph, but the image has more to tell us. Similar to the role of the father in 2

SID: 0603681 family photographs, it is the boys here who maintain the strongest air of formality through their poses. With their arms held behind their backs, straight-faced or frowning, they are more visually imposing than the girls, who hold subtle smiles and appear more relaxed. They stand close together to present a sense of cohesion, but this is not the cohesion of a family unit. On the contrary, there is nothing in their arrangement to suggest that these children are related. The most striking aspect of the pose in this photograph is its formality and solidity; their roles are that of the well-behaved schoolchildren who represent their school and formal education. They are both showing and demanding respect.

Bourdieus approach to understanding photography is perhaps demonstrated best in Image 2 (see appendix). It is here that we can see a clearly defined role for each subject in the photograph. The father stands at the back, one arm around his son, the other on his waist. He is elevated above the other subjects, being put in a position of overt authority. The mother sits behind her daughter, elevated above both children, but below the father. There is a clear division here, of both archetypal family and gender roles. Of its time, the photograph is formal and entirely co-ordinated; it is not just a photograph but an event. Bourdieu notes the family photograph and album as being the essence of social memory (Bourdieu, 2007: 30). This is most obvious in photographs from such an era, as the camera was yet to develop the ubiquitous presence it has today and was more often than not an occasion in itself, recording an event (as this image demonstrates) in which the subjects rigidly stick to their archetypal roles.

Interestingly, this photograph also demonstrates Barthes approach to equal measure. Barthes was adamant that death resided in every photograph, that there 3

SID: 0603681 is a distinct duality of the image in its ability to both preserve life and produce death (Barthes, 2000: 92). Like Bourdieus social roles, this becomes most apparent in photographs of subjects closer to the birth of photography. The punctum in this image, for me, is similar to that of Gardners Portrait of Lewis Payne (Barthes, 2000: 94). The young boy in this photograph is irrevocably and undeniably dead and yet at the same time I am privy to the knowledge that here, in this moment, he is alive, dead and going to die. This knowledge alters my perception of the photograph entirely, leading to questions regarding cause and effect; it is, as Barthes says, the pure representation of the noeme of photography (Barthes, 2000: 96), creating, in this image, a blind field that allows me as a spectator to ruminate on the life of this family before and after their sixteen year old son was taken by cancer. It is this punctum of intensity, not detail, which provokes an emotional response.

The third image (see appendix, Image 3) shows a bride and her father. Here, we can see that this photograph was taken much later in the timeline of photography than Image 2. Unlike the schoolchildren and the family, this photograph is a candid image of a formal event and the pose does not exist in the same realms as the others. By this point, photography and the photographic image were ubiquitous. If the pose exists in this image, it is a continuous presentation of oneself that corresponds with the explosion of the private into the public (Barthes, 2000: 98). As such, Bourdieus explanations of roles and poses remain visible in the photograph in the sense that the subjects are continually aware of the presence of the eye of the camera and of the crowd and present themselves accordingly, but unlike the previous images the camera itself is not the occasion.

SID: 0603681 For Barthes, the candid, amateur photograph appears closer to the noeme of Photography (Barthes, 2000:99). For me, the punctum is absent in that it is simply a photograph created for the purpose of being put into a family album and is unlikely to rouse the interest of anyone other than the operator or the subject. It is this kind of image that is more likely to appear in the modern photo album, the more authentic representation of the that-has-been, producing a moment of definite, fleeting existence.

Ultimately, it seems that the approaches of both Barthes and Bourdieu are, whilst wildly different to each other, necessary in understanding the myriad elements of Photography and the photograph. Whilst Bourdieu rationalises and divides images into the ways in which they reflect modern and past societies, Barthes takes on a more ontological approach, seeing the photograph as being closely linked to existence and death. Whilst Bourdieu focuses on the particular photograph and how it relates to us as a society, Barthes uses the particular as a springboard to understand the universal and how it relates to us as individuals.

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Bibliography Bourdieu, Pierre (2007) Photography: A Middle-brow Art California: Stanford University Press Barthes, Roland (2000) Camera Lucida Berkshire: Vintage

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Appendix Image 1:

Ima ge 2:

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Image 3: