When Dr. Bergman first told us about Camera Lucida, I was terrified. She told us she had read the book in graduate school and distinctly remembered having thrown it across the room in anger and frustration. I thought to myself, if this brilliant woman could not get through this book in graduate school, then how in the world am I? I was apprehensive, but once I actually started to read this book, I was a little relieved. After a few pages, not so much, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. I thought it was more entertaining than having to read three different books on Abraham Lincoln's life, which I have to do for history.

As I continued through the book, I was honestly- like Abe (haha)- the profoundness of Barthes' view on photography severely struck me. In class today, we were discussing how Camera Lucida is in reality the photograph of Barthes' life. Because he was not able to procreate and instill a part of himself in another human being, he believed that it was through this book that he would indeed leave a legacy, a creation of his own womb, if you will, through his writing. Like a camera gives "birth" to a photograph, through the reproduction of an image, Barthes has gives us a creative version of such kind of reproduction. And like there is a studium and a punctum in every photograph, they also exist throughout his book. We talked in class about the peculiarity that the "punctum", which we believe is to be the Winter Garden photograph of his mother, is not present in the book. However, is the photograph of his mother really the punctum? For him, of course it is, but it's certainly not the punctum for us, not only because it does not exist in the book, but because it would never have the same effect on us as it would have on Barthes. Precisely due to this reason, Barthes decided it was best not to include the picture in the book. I think for myself, the punctum of this piece of literature are actually those times where I was forced to stop and go back to a certain phrase and reread it, because it deemed so true to me; it had impacted me. And are those small details not the punctum that Barthes speaks of in photography, those small details that are captivated by mistake? I feel that there's much more complexity to this book to have the punctum of it so clearly defined. But then again, who could ever fully dominate and understand all the aspects of this book?