In Camera Lucida, Barthes discusses the importance of duality in photography. Specifically, he describes this duality with the phrases the studium and the punctum. The studium is what we see and the punctum is our emotional reaction. To Barthes, a photograph is not significant if there is no punctum for the studium. Since Barthes words are very complicated I found I only understood this concept in terms of acting terminology, which is something I am familiar with.

Visiting the International Center of Photography was incredibly exciting for me because of my love for photography. I had trouble, however, with the questions about each photograph's meaning. I recalled what I read in Camera Lucida about Barthes' "desperate resistance to any reductive system." I do intellectually understand "how" to interpret a photograph, but I don't always feel that analyzing and dissecting each image is a beneficial or necessary process.