week 11/ Barthes Reading

I found this text very difficult to read and saw that I was re-reading the same paragraphs and sentences over and over again. While reading this text I kept trying to relate it to photography. One of the quotes I found, “As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality but intransitively, that is to say, finally outside of any function other than that of the very practice of the symbol itself, this disconnection occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins.” I feel like can be directed towards photography.

            Photographs always have a narrative and once the narrative is no longer seen through the photo it is no longer there. This is a long shot but in essence the photo is dead such as the author is dead. I remember spending a lot of time in photo 1 learning how to explain the photos we were taking. Yes, you could take a pretty photograph but without a basis or explanation all the photograph really is, is pretty.

            While explaining work Barthes states, “The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author “confiding” in us”. Once again I feel that this is true for both authors and photographers. The explanation, while sometimes not given, is crucial to the work shown. If an explanation is given it should add more to the work and not take away.

            The author, much like the photographer, is trying to convey an image to an audience. This is why it is incredibly important for the author or photographer to have a message that they want to display. It is interesting to think about the similarities between authors and photographers because there are a lot more then I had thought of.

            Thinking about this text not in relation to photography I this quote, “Thus is revealed the total existence of writing: a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author.” was interesting. This quote displaces the author. It is only focused on the text, which can stand on its own without an author. The text is still readable and viewers can still draw emotions from piece. If this statement were made about a photograph and how it could stand alone without a photographer, I would disagree.  Yes, there are photos, which we do not know who has taken them but there still is a specific aesthetic shown in the photograph. A photo taken without a photographer would be so incredibly boring to look at. I feel like photos taken with recording devices set on self timer are not interesting at all.