Abstract:
To apprehend photography one must go beyond the surface of the photograph itself and consider the whole process. An apt description of this procedure was given by twentieth century French philosopher Roland Barthes, who has written profusely on sociology and lexicology. In the course of his reflections on photography, gathered together and published in Camera Lucida, Barthes described photography as the object of three practices [or equally, of three emotions or of three intentions]:
to DO [involving the spectrum], to UNDERGO [through the operator] and to LOOK [by the spectator].
This provides the basis for structuring this exploration. For architecture exists as a physical object. It is through the processes of the photographer that a moment is captured and this image is then regarded by us, as the observers. These three practices of the structure can be related to the historical time of the photograph. For there is the past of the object, the present time of the photographer and the future present of the viewer who regards the photograph.
For Barthes the person or thing photographed is the target, referent, a kind of simulacrum, which he labelled the spectrum of the photograph. The operator is the photographer. The spectator is ourselves, all of us who glance through collections of photographs - in magazines and newspapers, in books, albums, archives.
According to Barthes, photography is at the intersection of two distinct procedures: the action of light on certain substances and the formation of an image through an optical device. An image of a given object is created through chemical processes, capturing light on a photosensitive film and developing a photographic print, by the operator, the photographer. Ultimately this print is viewed by the spectator, who is the audience.
