Both the John Wood exhibition and the Avedon exhibition have ended at the ICP. Patty and I went today with no luck! Read this before you venture out. 

  I will be the first to admit that Hurricane Katrina never peaked much interest in me. Whether I didn’t understand what had actually happened, or whether I sought ignorance I cannot say. Last night, however, Thomas Neff, introduced me to this devastating disaster. Neff opened his presentation by defining his role as a photographer. He described himself as a photographic documentologist capturing history in the making.

       A couple of years ago, there was a fire in my apartment building. One neighbor’s failure to properly put out his cigarette burned down three adjacent apartments, one of which was my friends. In recalling the story of how his father had discovered his apartment was on fire, my friend related that there had only been enough time to grab some photographs. Of all the jewelry, clothing and decorations, why were his photographs more important? This brings me back to the discussion of the eidos of photography, which Barthes describes as death.

     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.