AngelaCasini
Lens and Reflection
Roland Barthes stated, “If I like a photograph, if it disturbs me, I linger over it. What am I doing during the whole time I remain with it? I scrutinize it, as if I wanted to know more about the thing or the person it represents.”[1] The portrait-photograph can be as straightforward as an image of a person for purpose of documentation, entertainment and self-expression to name a few. Composition can be considered or random snapshots with little intention of environment. The discovery of an amateur street photographer, Vivian Maier and her private collection of undeveloped film has been a delight in uncovering pieces of a mystery. Once discovered, and the film developed, we get a narrative of her life and how she viewed the world with her camera through its lens. What is the significance of her work and what may she have wanted to say through her portraits? The portrait photograph has the ability to capture the uncanny nature of the subject’s subconscious through the lens and the synoptic structure of the medium. This phenomenon is exhibited in the complexity of Maier’ photographs and the decades of voyeuristic study on the streets of New York City and Chicago. The candid self-portraits are even more curious because of the solitary life that she lived. The study of Roland Barthes and Camera Lucida offers to help identify and understand the importance of the photograph and its subject.
The photograph can speak its own language, and the second that moment is documented in the image it cannot be recreated. There is a particular aura in that split second when the image is captured in addition to time passing. The composition of the photograph, the spontaneity and the occasional happenstance is complementary. The mechanical nature of the camera can only allow for that glimpse of time to be captured. How does a photograph speak to an audience? The language spoken by an image is referred back to semiotics and Roland Barthes applies this theory to the study of photography. The photograph itself is the signifier and the signified is what the image represents. Therefore, when analyzing the images of Maier can we actually find her voice through her images? What can we deduct from her life and more importantly, her as a person intimately?
The photograph uses a language to communicate. While addressing the semiotic language of the image, Barthes uses two terms in Camera Lucida to break an image down. The components that draw a spectator in are the studium and the punctum. The studium is the obvious experience in the image that is universally understood at initial glance. It is straightforward and typically the signifier of the photograph. The punctum on the other hand is more complex by nature of the image and can be subjective to the viewer. This could be the signified, what could be an interpretation of the true meaning. The punctum is a certain element, maybe accidental, a small detail, or a surprise. Barthes explains the punctum here, “In this habitually unary space, occasionally (but alas all too rarely) a “detail” attracts me. I feel that its mere presence changes my reading, that I am looking at a new photograph, marked in my eyes with a higher value.”[2] It is the one thing that actually helps to tell the story or stir emotion and gain reaction within the viewer. The punctum can draw the viewer in an image and engage a relationship (language) from the photographer to its audience. Looking at the images of Maier, one can witness these moments of sheer spontaneity. She was able to capture the casual and random everyday events on the streets by being there ready to photograph at the right time and place. This creates a strong voice to audience narrating her life and dwellings in New York City and Chicago beginning in the 1950’s. Notably, she had an affinity with mirrors, reflections, and shadows along the city streets. The point of view for which the images were taken was at waist level with the Rolleifex she wore around her neck. Upon observation of the photograph, Barthes speaks of an introduction of “photographic knowledge.” Barthes explains this here, “I observed that a photograph can be that of three intentions): to do, to undergo, to look. The Operator is the Photographer. The spectator is ourselves, all of us who glance through collections of photographs-in magazines and newspapers, in books, album, archives…And the person or thing photographed is the target, the referent, a kind of little simulacrum, any eidolon emitted by the object, which I should like to call the Spectrum of the photograph, because with word retains, through its root, a relation to “spectacle” and adds to it that rather terrible thing which is there in every photograph: the return of the dead.”[3] If we try to understand this and know that the simulacrum is only a representation or an imitation and the eidolon is the idealized person or a ghost, what does this say about photographs as we see them and understand the content from the spectator’s point of view? The moment captured was in the past tense and is gone and the only part of that time that remains is that reminder in the photograph’s nostalgia. “What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially. In the Photograph, the event is never transcended for the sake of something else…][4]
When choosing a photograph from Vivian Maier’s self portrait collection, it is difficult to select only one photograph because there are literally thousands of images being developed and archived. Barthes does speak of the dilemma when view selecting photographs to write about. He states,” I have always suffered from: the uneasiness of being a subject torn between two languages, one expressive, the other critical; and at the heart of this critical language, between several discourses, those of sociology, of semiology, and of psychoanalysis-but that, by ultimate dissatisfaction with all of them, I was bearing witness to the only sure thing that was in me (however naïve it may be): a desperate resistance to any reductive system.”[5] Considering what Barthes is saying here, Maier’s images are being seen with an expressive eye being that she was an amateur photography. Critically, it is difficult to critique her work but instead seek out the language of expressiveness in two photographs selected for discussion. Vivian Maier’s self-portraiture along the streets is fascinating because the same visual vocabulary is seen in many of her works whether it was intentional or not. The self-portraits are shot in reflections and there appears to be a fascination with Maier and how she appeared in reflective surfaces, shadows and mirrors. Many of them reminiscent of the way a funhouse distorts and multiplies and images when walking by and observing the tricks played. Again from the vantage point at the waist and up from which the camera was held, adds to a unique perspective of seeing the figure. Are these truly representational of the artist’s persona or are they now the phantoms that Barthes describes when speaking of the subject?
Self-Portrait, 1954 VM1954W00130-07-MC[6]
The first image in simply titled under a category from her black and white self-portraits. The entirety of the image if examined closely can be viewed as three different layers that were created by the multi–reflective surfaces. The first layer of the image is the studium where she is holding a gaze through what may be a shop window and from there into a highly polished silver platter. The second layer is a figure staring into a window, reflecting back is a chain link fence, the silver platter with a dark curtain in the background. The personal aspect that would be the punctum is a couple of things. First of all there appears to be a third layer of reflection and that being Maier’s dress reflecting off the dark fabric through the window. Only the torso is visible in this layer because the second layer of reflection, is the platter. The platter curiously obstructs the reflection of the camera lending to a ghostlike floating quality. Adding to this eeriness is her face looking back to the viewer. Maier’s face is distorted with brows tilting down and the blurring enhancing a strange feeling. This feeling is an aspect of sensation is uncanny, a discomfort but possible truth that cannot be verified. Perhaps the artist stood in that moment contemplating the distortion that the reflections gave her features or maybe she was amused by the effect and it is what compelled her to capture that image. The strange way that a lens can capture the complexity and depth that could represent so much about the person who shot the image. The bewilderment is captivating experience.
Self-Portrait, 1971 VM1971W01758-10-MC[7]
This portrait like many of hers seems to narrate herself with obscurity. The focal point is a woman sunbathing and looking closer the composition becomes significant. Maier’s shadow has joined the sunbather and the two figures split the entire image in half. There is an obvious absurdity with the sunbather having her hair wound tightly in curlers and looking down at Maier’s shadow as if she is welcoming herself into the experience. The studium is the woman on the beach sunbathing and there is not anything out of the ordinary except the shadow, which is subjectively the punctum. While the sunbather is obviously on a beach clad only in her in her bikini, the shadow of Maier is juxtaposed to this image. It can be deducted that the shadow is wearing a brimmed city hat and possibly a bulky coat which is very contrary to the rest of the image and how the artists fits in to this story. She has depicted herself as an outsider or a prowling shadow lurking on beach. Did she notice the absurdity and that was inspiration for the photograph? Was she finding humor in the bikini-clad woman with curlers in her hair? Perhaps there was a sinister way she saw herself anonymously interacting with strangers she observed passing by. Regardless of the intention of the artist, she choose to be a part of that moment by placing herself where her shadow could be cast in the image and sealed into that photograph.
Because Vivian Maier lived a private and solitary life employed by taking jobs as a nanny, this gave her the time to have this language with her camera. What she has left behind of her life, we can only piece together and draw our own conclusions as spectators. We can assume or make judgments about her thoughts based on how she chose to portray herself and others in this candid manner of street photography. Were her photographs irrelevant since she chose the hoard the rolls of film? Was the camera they only way she felt that she could communicate with people? The surprise in the development after her passing years later is a goldmine of her life and how she documented it in her own voice. The portrait-photograph of Maier because of the uncanny way that she chose to see herself in reflection, shadow and distortion, peels away a layer closer to her subconscious. The camera lens was her sight and it narrated and documented her life and legacy. “Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It’s a wheel. You get on, you have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on.”[8]
WorksCited
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981.
Maier, Vivian. Self-Portrait 1954. John Maloof, New York.
Maier, Vivian. Self-Portrait 1971. John Maloof, New York.
—. Vivian Maier. 2014. vivianmaier.com (accessed November 30, 2015).
[1] (Barthes 1981)
[2] (Barthes 1981)
[3] (Barthes 1981)
[4] (Barthes 1981)
[5] (Barthes 1981)
[6] (Maier, Self-Portrait 1954 n.d.)
[7] (Maier, Self-Portrait 1971 n.d.)
[8] (Maier, Vivian Maier 2014)
