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.)
Roland BarthesRead
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.
Roland BarthesRead
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.
Roland BarthesRead
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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