Roland Barthes writes very passionately about photography, claiming that light is not only what makes a photograph works, but also what makes it so special. Barthes says that it was the chemists, not the painters that "invented" photography. He expounds on the wonders of black and white photos and he admits to his disinterest in color.
Personally I found Barthes' paper to be rather fluff filled, but I liked some of his points concerning a photographs direct connection to reality. He talks about how a photograph is the record of light that has literally been touched by its subject. Scientifically speaking he is completely right and I find that concept absolutely fascinating.The idea of capture and image or an experience might not be full understood if you don't think about photography in this way.
Barthes also makes some good points about how a photograph gives concrete proof of the things that have been. He says photography adds a certainty to the past that was not around before its invention. I found this point very interesting as well. Humans are extremely visually oriented. If you here a story you ask to see the proof. There is so much uncertainty about our pre-photography history and even more so about our prehistoric. Photography made similar leaps in cataloging our existence as did the introduction of written history. The further we progress the more densely thorough our recent visual history will become.
Although this article offered a few interesting ideas I felt that it was the least helpful of our assigned readings or videos. Barthes seemed to talk a lot without saying much of anything useful. I don't believe it added anything to the other articles we have covered during this project.
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