Dear <<First Name>>  

If I like a photograph, if it disturbs me, I linger over it – Roland Barthes

When a photographer makes a photograph and when viewers look at photographs, there are lots of things going on.  For example, there is the scene itself and whether you like it or not; there is the organization of elements within the frame; there are issues around color or tones of black and white; and, a host of other considerations – both theoretical and perceptual.  All those elements can be rolled up into 2 considerations according to a long debated aspect of photography theory -- the studium and punctum (derived from latin words that we won't go into here).  You might want to test these concepts the next time you are looking at photographs.

The concepts of studium and punctum come to us from Roland Barthes’ book, Camera Lucida.  It is one of the standard works of photography theory, in which he notes that photographs are the “living image of a dead thing”.  Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher and critic, influencing schools of theory such as structuralism, semiotics and social theories. You can find more detailed information here and here.

Studium are the elements of the photograph that create an interest and understanding of both the image and of the photographers’ intention. It is the general approach to a photograph that is conditioned by historical and cultural experiences. Journalistic photographs are good examples of the studium.  Studium adds content and interest to an image.  For example in this Koen Wessing photograph, "Nicaragua 1979", Barthes notes, “I understood at once that this photograph's ‘adventure’ derived from the co-presence of two elements" -- the Nuns and the Military.  The studium indicates historical, social and cultural meanings and can be interpreted as a presence of the opposites of war and religion, violence and spirituality.  These create tension and interest in a photograph.  It shows the photographer’s intention.

Punctum goes beyond interest in a photograph. Punctum is an object within the image that jumps out at the viewer. Barthes noted that the Punctum is the part of the photograph that is like an “accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).” Punctum is the smaller details that attract the viewer into an image. Barthes notes that the Punctum is less about interest (the studium) and more about the emotional response.  The punctum's “mere presence changes my reading, that I am looking at a new photograph, marked in my eyes with a higher value.” The punctum is a personal response and more powerful and compelling to the viewer.  The viewer can like the studium. The punctum leads to a love of an image. As Barthes notes, the punctum is unique to photographs because it is a detail that is sensory and has an intensely subjective effect on the viewer.

Barthes points out his own “punctum” in this Lewis Hines photo, "Idiot Children in an Institution, New Jersey, 1924" saying, “I … hardly see the monstrous heads and pathetic profiles (which belong to the studium); what I see … is the off-centre detail, the little boy’s huge Danton collar, the girl’s finger bandage”
 

Next time you are looking carefully at an image, check these ideas out and see if the concepts work for you.  Have fun with the concepts and your own looking. 

Ultimately, Photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks
– Roland Barthes