Camera Lucida Roland Bathes

..The Photograph belongs to that class of laminated objects whose two leaves cannot be separated without destroying them both: the windowpane and the landscape, and why not: Good and Evil, desire and its object: dualities we can conceive but not perceive..(p 6)

Dude. What a beautiful book. I know you guys think I'm turning into a real pretentious fuck, reviewing my theory books. But this one was a nice, easy-reading dose of semiology. Bordering on the sentimental sometimes, Barthes moves through the meaning of Photography. The thinking was so clear-headed and plain at times that you forgot he was some kind of famous theorist.

I like the way he's not afraid to play games, take chances on the indefinite. He admonishes logical composition (studium) for what it is: a boring way of understanding things.

I wanted to explore it not as a question (a theme) but as a wound, I see, I feel, hence I notice, I observe, and I think. (21)

While reading this book, I realized how cold I've become. Barthes' sentimental and open responses to photography made me feel like I had been NYUed by the institution. He talks about photography and time as if the photograph invites the imagination, no it demands the imagination of a different time, different place because the photographed thing must have been and the photograph is some kind of half-witness of that being. Well, I haven't made up a story in a long time. I haven't looked at a scarf and thought about texture and something soft on my skin or even the time I used to wear scarves. Did you know I used to wear a silk scarf every day? I had tons on them in every color.