Det lyse kammer : bemærkninger om fotografiet (1980)

A really great book about the personal relationship to photography that is somewhat prophetic and entirely fascinating, from the mind of one of the most important thinkers on the transmission of information in the 20th Century. ( )

Based on 48 fragments of philosophical insights about photography, this short book is at its core about love and grief, written after the loss of Barthes’ mother in 1977 with whom he had lived most of his life. He starts looking for her among old photographs and time and again the face he finds is not hers, even if she looks like herself. He ends up discovering her true likeness, the "air" that he remembers, in a picture of his mother at five years old taken by a provincial photographer in a winter garden in 1898. ( )

Il potere della fotografia in un testo complesso e poetico tuttora indispensabile. ( )

Què és la Fotografia? És un Art? L'autor reflexionan sobre el tema en un moment sensible de la seva vida, la seva mare acaba de morir i ell intenta retrobar-la per alleugerir la pèrdua, a partir d'aquest sentiment disserta i crea un corpus per definir la fotografia. Analitza l'obra de diversos autors i de quina manera l'impressionen. Si bé el pròleg i l'inici és fa una mica feixuc, en el moment que inicia l'anàlisi de fotografies concretes resulta molt interessant i desperta en tu una nova manera de mirar una fotografia. ( )

Personally, I found this book to be of uneven quality. It has flashes where it is very good indeed, and then there are sections where I thought that he was meandering.

It is not an easy book, and I did read it slowly. I may well read it again. The overall tone is sombre, and the parts that I like are when he discusses a photograph, because this made me a lot more sensitive to what is in the photo, and what the story could possibly be. This is the singular most achievement of this set of writings.

I am not sure about that section on his mother, but the pain of her loss, and his love for her shine through. This part is deeply personal, and I must admire him for being able to share this. ( )