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| Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography | 
| Author: Roland Barthes
Creator: Richard Howard
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
Buy New: $7.35
You Save: $5.65 (43%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 27385
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 119
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.4
ISBN: 0374521344
Dewey Decimal Number: 770
EAN: 9780809013982
ASIN: 0374521344
Publication Date: May 1, 1982
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 For the people... April 6, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
After reading these last few negative reviews i had to write in about this, one of the most amazing books i have ever read. It is true that this book could be thought of as for the well read and serious academics only, but really, it is a book for anyone wishing to challenge the true nature of photography and its effect on the individual and society as a whole. No, it is not for those who simply wish to sit and idly consume 'pictures;' if this is you then do not bother even picking up this book.
This book attempts to help us navigate the way we consume images, to make it easier to understand just what it is that draws us to them so much, and which for me it did beautifully. Barthes doesn't try to give all the answers, but rather approaches his explanation in a very poetic (not long winded as another reviewer said!)and personal language which gives an intimacy that is very rare in academic texts.
If you truly want to open your eyes to the wider implications of photography then this book is a must (along with Susan Sontag's On Photography)
Barthes on Art, not just Photography. August 23, 2006
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
Enclosed among these "Reflections on Photography" is a provocative theory of art in general, of what gives art the power to keep us looking. Barthes speaks of what he calls the 'punctum,' that aspect of a photograph (or, by implication, of any image, visual or textual) that pierces the viewer's consciousness, that wounds us like a dart of desire and leads to a blurring of the line between the aesthetic and the erotic. Here is an answer to Sontag's call for an 'erotics of art.' (Barthes and Sontag were friends, and it's quite possible that they influenced each other.) A great image, great art, has the power to wound us and fascinate us like a lover. And we as viewers must open ourselves to this power, like people in love. Indeed, one of the things Barthes is doing in this book is 'cruising' photography in the same way that he, a gay man, might have 'cruised' attractive men in the beaches, bars and baths of the 1970's. A wonderful book that deserves to be more widely read.
 Heavy going February 26, 2006
7 out of 21 found this review helpful
It is my belief that people who really know what they are talking about can explain their thoughts clearly. I cannot be sure if the fault in this book is with the original author or the translator, but it certainly does not measure up to this criterion. It may be of interest to photography academics, but I doubt if a photographer will get much out of it that is useful.
boring & pretentious crap! October 7, 2005
10 out of 51 found this review helpful
This book is a sure snooze-fest. Luckily for me I did not have to read the entire book for my undergrad art history photo class. We read selected chapters of the book.
They writing was horrible. Many parts were unclear. I had to reread what I read over and over. I can't stand this style of writing. Barthes attempts to come off as interesting and intelligent. Instead, he comes off as boring and pretentious.
Skip this book... try something else.
Barthes Un-Does the History of Photography (and Himself) April 6, 2005
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
Roland Barthes, in his brilliant, moving, captivating book on photography, moves from a desire to find the ontology of the Photograph to the deepest regions of his psyche.
In his brilliant prose, Barthes raises the bar on how to engage with photography (be they art-photographs or snap-shots), and how to write about a photograph or photographs. It is no longer necessary to remove one's subjective, deeply personal response/s to a photograph/s. Within pages, Barthes deconstructs the objective/subjective binary, which opens the way one can write and talk about a photograph/s in a personal and/or academic setting.
In the section, I believe called *The Winter Garden,* which is at the end of his book, Barthes discusses his (recently passed) mother and her photograph, which he adores and yet does not re-produce in the book: be does not present her and re-member her, but rather rememories her (Morrison). What he writes about the photgraph and his mother (the-photograph-and/as-his-mother?) is absolutely moving and touching (I cried, and i still do ... no matter how many times I read this section of _Camera Lucida_).
Through all of this, the twists and turns in the book, you beging to realize, or at least I did, that the photograph is about touching (and I dont only mean his idea of the *punctum*)--but not in a unilinear fashion: the photo touches me as I touch it; there is a chiasmus. Indeed, this section--the entire book, actualy--is also a brilliant discussion, without overtly discussing it, on the phenomenological experience with the/a photograph.
Barthes' book has left an imprint on me--I guess it, the book, touched me too, which will not soon go away. It has helped me look at photographs (of all kinds) in a different way, through different lenses.
I would suggest that you read this book more than once (!), and you may want to read it in relation to one of his other books, which was roughly written at the same time, _The Lover's Discourse_. Indeed, Barthes is deeply moving and philosophical without any type of tedium or over-kill. Hmm, I would argue that Barthes has set the stage for more writing and meditating on love and the image, love and the other.
x-robt
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