Part II of Camera Lucida turned my understanding completely around. The first part concluded with a discussion of a number of photographs and the elements of photography such as studium, punctum, referent as well as the ideas on ontology and semiotics. Part two focuses on other ideas like the "winter garden photograph". In the second part of the book Barthes says "painting can feign reality" while photography can not because a photograph involves something "that has been". While in paintings referents can be altered but in photography, things are as they are at that one specific moment in time. There is no denying the past reality of this photo and more important its originality. This was another topic that added to the discussion in class as we were trying to find a difference between the two mediums. In photography it is impossible to have to originals but paintings can be replicated. The next big topic of discussion was the "winter garden photograph" because no one knows what the exact photo looks like, or if it even exists for that matter. Barthes describes in the book on page 73 that he "cannot reproduce the Winter Garden Photograph" because it "exists only for (him)". Therefore the photo would mean nothing to us and have no significance. I would have to believe that the photograph does not exist in physical proof but rather is embedded within his imagination or even memory. Perhaps this photograph was comprised of his own intentions of how he imagined things to appear or how he wanted things arranged. Another option, the one I tend to support, is that the photograph could have existed had the camera shutters shut and the photo was taken, but it never came to that fruition. His description of the photo could just be from a recollection of the event and what Barthes was told about that time in history. 

         After the first reading of Camera Lucida I did not expect that it would continue in this manner. I was expecting a book that described photography and the different elements of photography. I also expected to read about what makes photographs better than other photographs and how to find the best photographs. There was one idea that I admire although it was not anything knew, for I already acknowledged this information, was the paradoxical statements like life/death and past/present. These terms must exist in relationships because one word gives meaning to the other. With the presence of one word, the other word would have no significance and meaning would be flawed. While it is not something I have studied, I have always been attracted etymology (the study of the origins of words and how they came to exist) and semantics (the study of the meaning of words).