This man is pretty dang grouchy. The way he views photography and its practice with these excerpts is very negative in my opinion. He has some really great redeemable quotes but the overall vibe of this writing was not my favorite. I have purchased the book to try and find the better moments spoken of in class.
"The Operator is the Photographer. The Spectator is ourselves, all of us who glance through collections of photographs- in magazines and newspapers, in books, albums, archives...
And the person or thing photographed is the target, the referent, a kind of little simulacrum, any eidolon emitted by the object, which I should like to call the Spectrum of Photograph, because this word retains, through its root, a relation to 'spectacle' and adds to it that rather terrible thing which is there in every photograph: the return of the dead."
I find the way Barthes writes very interesting by somewhat hard to follow. "The return of the dead," is a bit dramatic.
The best part of these experts is the section about punctum or studium. Whereas the studium is the act of studying, gathering the knowledge about photography. The actual education and civility behind a photograph. Punctum is the image that grabs your attention. The one you always remember and can never forget. The one that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Punctum and Studium are great terms coined by Barthe to summarize what is important about photography.
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