Double Take

In Jay Prosser’s second book Light in a Dark Room: Photography and Loss, Prosser examines photography and revisits assertions he made about it in his first book. Prosser originally fell for the myth of the photographic truth – which asserts that what a viewer sees in a photo is real and unframed or untouched – in his first book. In his second work, Prosser realizes he did this and looks to critically analyze why and how he did this. Prosser looks to another scholar to figure out why he did this… and that scholar is Roland Barthes.

Prosser cites Barthes’ argument that a viewer is lead to read a photograph a certain way. This is called the studium. It is the obvious way we are supposed to look at a photograph. This can be determined by social conventions (what kind of photograph it is), the subject (who or what is depicted), the photographer (what s/he chooses to show), etc. Barthes and Prosser, however, are more interested in the punctum. The punctum, according to Barthes, is that which “pierces the viewer.” It is something in the photograph that catches your eye and might disrupt your initial reading of it. It gives you a connection to the image that is more personal than the studium.

Now to fully explore Prosser and Barthes’ ideas, let’s take a look at a few photos from artist Del La Grace Volcano’s portfolio entitled Classics. The first image I would like to take a look at is entitled “Jax Back.”

Looking at this image without any context information about the subject of the photo itself or the photographer that took it, one comes up with a certain perception. We see a body. More specifically, we see a muscular back of a body. The body has a short haircut and is wearing fairly baggy camouflage pants. There is no shirt. Looking at the photo, one assumes that the subject is male. (In fact, I asked numerous residents of mine – I’m an RA by the way – and every single one described the figure as a ‘he’ or as male.) The studium is that this is a male posing for a photo with his shirt off.

However, when we look at the next image in the series our perception of the first photo changes. The next photo is entitled “Jax Revealed.”

We see the same body in this photograph. We know this to be true because the body is wearing the same camouflage pants and instead of holding a short like in the last image, the body is taking it off. We also see that the body in the second image is the same size as the one in the first. Furthermore, the titles of the two link the images very strongly. Conclusion: it is the same body but seen at a different angle in a different pose. There is something, however, that goes against our first impression of the body. The body has boobs.

This image makes us go back and take another look at the first. Instead of focusing on the muscular back and broad shoulders, we now notice that the body has hips. And now, at least I do, instead of focusing on the muscles and the short haircut I’m noticing those hips. And I’m noticing the huge watch on the small wrist. The second photo served as a type of punctum for the first. And the second photo led me to notice other punctums in the first image (the watch, the wrist, the curve of the hip). “Jax Revealed” did in fact reveal Jax. It revealed that Jax is different than what was first assumed.

(Links courtesy of http://www.dellagracevolcano.com/index.html)