About Benedict Mind
Benedict Mind is a UK-based photographer, journalist and artist. He’s an Affiliate of the Royal Photographic Society and sits on the society’s Distinctions Advisory Panel. He is additionally a previous editor of Digital Digicam Journal, and the writer of You Will probably be In a position to Take Nice Photographs by The Finish of This E book.
Within the early summer time, I began a Grasp’s program in pictures, and by the late summer time, I had additionally taken on a part-time position as a lecturer in pictures at Nottingham Trent College. So I instantly discovered myself concurrently being a scholar and trainer, creating an fascinating dynamic. As a consequence, I’ve discovered myself revisiting Roland Barthes’ seminal textual content Digicam Lucida each within the classroom and in my MA research.
It was a foundational textual content once I did my diploma 30 years in the past, but it surely has been good to have a look at it once more.
Barthes talks about two parts in images: the studium and the punctum. The studium is our basic curiosity and understanding of what the picture is about – like appreciating a panorama for its topography, gentle and composition. Then there’s the punctum, that particular element, usually small or surprising, that jumps out and actually grabs the viewer’s emotion, a poignant element that pierces or wounds the viewer. In fact, the ‘punctum’ might be totally different for various viewers and consequently opens the topic to doubtlessly lengthy and fascinating philosophical debate – an excessive amount of to cowl on this quick column.
I used to be first uncovered to Barthes and his concepts within the late Nineteen Eighties, however these ideas have all the time been near my thoughts within the final couple of a long time and have subconsciously, together with many different essential theories, knowledgeable my picture-taking. It’s enjoyable to be exploring it once more with college students.
This diptych explores the underlying menace that appears to permeate the Australian panorama. Coming from the comparatively benign British countryside, the place essentially the most threatening creature could be an offended badger, the fixed consciousness of the presence of deadly wildlife in Australia creates a unique sort of seeing and consciousness.
The left picture exhibits simply the clawed foot of a crocodile. It’s taken in an aquarium, as you may inform from the stress marks within the tank’s cloth. Rising mysteriously from the facet of the shot, the claw suggests a way of menace and imminent hazard. The fitting picture captures the twisted, bleached branches of lifeless bushes towards the darkness of the bush, accentuated by means of my flash.
I’m drawn to this interaction between magnificence and menace, the way in which hazard lurks in essentially the most picturesque settings. It’s this sense that pierces me emotionally and so may, utilizing Barthes’ phrases, be seen because the ‘punctum’. This can be totally different for you, the viewer – how does it make you’re feeling?
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