Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
Roland BarthesRead
Every photograph is a certificate of presence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that photographs serve as proof of existence at a specific moment in time.
Roland Barthes' quote suggests that every photograph captures a moment that confirms the presence of a subject, whether it be a person, place, or object, at a particular point in time. This idea underscores the documentary nature of photography, highlighting its role in preserving memories and evidence of reality, ultimately reminding us of the transient nature of existence and our ability to commemorate it through images.
Themes
PhotographPresenceMemoryEvidenceArt
In practice
Example use cases
Using the quote during a photography exhibition to discuss the significance of each captured moment.
More from Roland Barthes
All quotes βIf I acknowledge my dependency, I do so because for me it is a means of signifying my demand: in the realm of love, futility is not a "weakness" or an "absurdity": it is a strong sign: the more futile, the more it signifies and the more it asserts itself as strength.)
Roland BarthesRead
The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other.
Roland BarthesRead
The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.
Roland BarthesRead
I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.
Roland BarthesRead
All those young photographers who are at work in the world, determined upon the capture of actuality, do not know that they are agents of Death.
Roland BarthesRead
Similar quotes
I think there's a kind of desperate hope built into poetry that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there's still time.
W. S. MerwinRead
I want the ballet world to be given the respect that it deserves and to be seen by more people - for so many to experience the beauty that I've received from the ballet world.
Misty CopelandRead
If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.
Naguib MahfouzRead
I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.
Tony KushnerRead
The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.
Ezra PoundRead
One does not photograph something simply for 'what it is', but 'for what else it is.
Minor WhiteRead