Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
Roland BarthesRead
The Photograph is an extended, loaded evidence — as if it caricatured not the figure of what it represents (quite the converse) but its very existence ... The Photograph then becomes a bizarre (i)medium(i), a new form of hallucination: false on the level of perception, true on the level of time: a temporal hallucination, so to speak, a modest (o)shared(i) hallucination (on the one hand 'it is not there,' on the other 'but it has indeed been'): a mad image, chafed by reality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote talks about photography as a complex medium that reflects both reality and illusion, capturing existence in a unique way.
Roland Barthes explores the nature of photography, suggesting that while a photograph may represent something that is no longer present, it holds a unique truth that transcends mere visual representation. He describes photography as both a medium of distorted reality and a reminder of the passage of time, making it a shared yet individual experience that can evoke deep emotional responses.
Themes
PhotographyRealityIllusionExistenceTime
In practice
Example use cases
During a photography exhibition, this quote can be used to introduce the complex relationship between photographs and reality.
More from Roland Barthes
All quotes →If 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.)
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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.
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The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.
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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.
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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
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