He who is photographed
“Now once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute
myself in the process of “posing”, I instantaneously make another
body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image.” (10)
“I derive my existence from the photographer....an image—my image—will
be generated...If only I could “come out” on paper as on a classical
canvas, endowed with a noble expression —thoughtful, intelligent, etc.!...but...since
Photography is anything but subtle except in the hands of the very greatest
portraitists, I don’t know how to work upon my skin from within. I decide
to “let drift” over my lips and in my eyes a faint smile which I
mean to be “indefinable,” in which I might suggest, along with the
qualities of my nature, my amused consciousness of the whole photographic ritual...I
want you to know that I am posing, but ...this additional message must in no
way alter the precious essence of my individuality...” (11)
“...”myself” never coincides with my image; for it is the
image which is heavy, motionless , stubborn (which is why society sustains it),
and “myself” which is light, divided, dispersed; like a bottle-imp...”(12)
“...Odd that no one has thought of the disturbance (to civilization) which
this new action (seeing oneself through the photograph) causes. I want a History
of Looking. For the Photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation
of consciousness from identity....”(12)
“This disturbance is ultimately one of ownership. Law has expressed it
in its way: to whom does the photograph belong? Is landscape itself only a kind
of load made by the owner of the terrain? Countless cases, apparently, have
expressed this uncertainty in a society for which being was based on having.
Photography transformed subject into object...”
“The portrait-photograph is a closed field of forces. Four image-repertoires
intersect here, oppose and distort each other. In front of the lens, I am at
the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the
one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his
art. In other words, a strange action: I do not stop imitating myself, and because
of this each time I am (or let myself be) photographed, I invariably suffer
from a sensation of inauthenticity, sometimes of imposture (comparable to certain
nightmares)...”(13)
“I am neither subject nor object but a subject who feels he is becoming
an object; I then experience a micro-version of death (of parenthesis): I am
truly becoming a specter. The Photographer knows this very well, and himself
fears (if only for commercial reasons) this death in which his gesture will
embalm them. Nothing would be funnier (if one were not its passive victim...)
than the photographers’ contortions to produce effects that are “lifelike”...”
(14)
from Roland Barthes
Camera Lucida
Reflections of Photography
1980