Finding and Losing the Punctum

I came across this portrait of actress Merle Oberon by Edward Steichen while searching for a photograph with a clear studium and punctum.

The cleverness of this photograph lies in the juxtaposition of the face of the actress with the carved face of the statue. Both faces are presented with the soft, blank stares of statues, painted portraits, and early portrait photography. But there are other similarities. The carved head is detached from a body and Oberon’s head appears to be so, because of the dark area under her face. Both the statue and Oberon have one eye in complete darkness with partial lighting on the other eye. But, the lighting on the eye of Oberon is minimal giving it a less than life-like appearance; her stare is as vacant as the statue.

The punctum for me is the hand that emerges from the darkness to touch Oberon’s face. The fingers don’t seem to be just lightly resting, but pulling on her skin. The hand, although hers, seems detached from her. It doesn’t seem like a friendly hand; it seems as if it’s forcing Oberon to present her face to the viewer the same way that the statue does – cold, hard, perfect.

Being intrigued as I was by this photograph, I looked up Merle Oberon. Apparently she was an actress of mixed racial descent and spent her career trying to hide it – to appear as white as possible. She lost lovers when they found out about her Indian background and being afraid she would also lose starring roles, she invented a past for herself that would enforce the audience’s belief in her whiteness.

This adds an even deeper meaning to the photograph. Of course, now that I can explain it, my punctum has turned more into studium. I see Oberon’s hand, emerging from the hidden, darker side of her, trying to mold her face into a white face like the one in the statue. She seems to be trying to present as generic a face as possible for the screen. This isn’t unheard of today. How many film stars get plastic surgery to force their features into a generic ideal? I wonder how complicit Steichen was in this process. Was he trying to capture her face in a moment of generic ideality? Did he intentionally capture her fingers pulling on her face to show the futility of Oberon trying to pretend she is someone she is not?

Defining Theatrical Photography

I recently took a PhD seminar at UCSD called Theatre and Photography. One of the topics of discussion that recurred frequently centered around the questions: What is a theatrical photograph? The essays we read discussed the idea of the theatrical photograph as “encapsulation of everyone else’s efforts” (Donald Cooper), iconic images of the text (T. J. Edelstein), as well as the “truth” of the production (Jim Carmody). We looked at and discussed photographs that were staged outside of the performance space, staged inside of the performance space, and taken during a rehearsal or production. Which of these is the best at documenting the performance? Does it depend on the production? It isn't a question we were able to answer conclusively although we each had our own opinions about strong theatrical photos.

This photo by Max Waldman serves, I believe, as accurate documentation of the production Dionysus in 69, directed by Richard Schechner at the Performing Garage in 1968. This photo is almost certainly staged and not taken during an actual performance. However, it captures the most important qualities of the production. This photo seems to be an ideal image – one in which all of the elements have been orchestrated to depict as much information as possible about the performance.

The environmental performance blurred the boundaries between performers and spectators. Often, the actors would perform scenes while leaning up against or lying on top of the audience members. This photograph places the viewer so close to the action that it evokes the sense that s/he could reach out and touch the actors – as it would have been during the show. By viewing the actors from this particular angle, the viewer of the photograph feels as if the performance is for her/him only. This fits with Schechner’s use of local focus in his productions (a technique in which the actors performed certain lines or actions in such a way that only a few people in the audience could hear or see what was happening.) The nudity and facial expressions (especially on the men at the bottom of the pile) express the overall Dionysian quality of a production that was far more concerned with the physical than the cerebral. Finally, the photo shows a bit of the conflict between the individual and the group that is present in the play. Dionysus is in the process of being born, solidifying his individuality. However, the entire group, working as a unified organism, once again evokes the Dionysian.

This photograph fulfills my requirements for a theatrical photograph: It is an artistic photo that stands alone (outside of its documentary purposes) and it serves as documentation of the theatrical event by conveying a sense of what it would be like to attend the production and portraying an important scene from the play.

Staged Theatrical Photography and Actual Performance Photography seem to be totally different art forms that take different skills. STP seems more like portrait photography and APP seems more like photojournalism. But can both achieve the same end goal – a photo that adequately documents a performance?

Reinforcing conventions with photography

Looking at photos like these made me wonder: What is important in wedding photography – the subject, the form, the act of taking the picture?

While I didn’t cut a cake at my wedding let alone have it photographed, most of my friends and family (as well as many folks on the internet like those featured here) have a photo like this in their wedding albums: Man in suit, woman in white dress, both holding one decorative cake knife, both smiling as they make the first incision into their (usually) white, tiered cake.

To use my wedding as an example once again, I did not hire a wedding photographer. I figured some snapshots and my own memories would suffice. However, looking at the professional photographs of many other people’s weddings, I’m beginning to think that for many, the action of placing themselves in culturally predetermined poses and being photographed is as much a part of the marriage ritual as repeating the vows.

The bride and groom as individuals become less important in these photos than the poses they adopt. It reminds me of a passage in Don DeLillo’s White Noise. The narrator, Jack, describes going to the most photographed barn in America. Jack’s friend Murray tells him that no one actually sees the barn anymore, but they see what others see. They are “part of a collective perception.” As everyone takes pictures of the barn, they “reinforce the aura.”

Maybe as each couple poses for the cut-the-cake picture, they are reinforcing the traditions of marriage. By repeating the rituals and documenting them with photographs, perhaps they believe that they are creating a stronger union by becoming part of a larger tradition.

Photogenicity - in the Wiktionary if not the Dictionary

I am a firm believer in the theory of photogenicity. I know that I have never looked my best in photos (other people have confirmed this for me.) My theory has always been that my features are not quite defined enough and so the camera simply records a fleshy blob instead of my face. Perhaps it is speciesist of me, but I never thought that animals would have this same problem. I have found, however, that in the three years since I have lived with cats, that some of them have their likenesses taken much easier than do others.

Tiberius for example, looks lovely in almost every photo even with a modest camera, mediocre lighting, and no retouching (as you can see). His typical tabby pattern and color and matte coat absorb the light perfectly making him look even better in the photo than he does in reality.

Buggie however, though her fluffy gray fur comes out well, has facial features that come out strangely in photos. This baffles me because she is probably (and this viewpoint is completely and utterly unbiased) the prettiest cat ever.

Now Dickens, who is also almost unbearably handsome, looks like a shiny black smudge in photographs. He is too black and too sleek and the light just bounces off of him.

Last night I was determined to take photographs of my pets that capture their beauty so I used a clip-on flash (Nikon Speedlight SB-600) to bounce the flash off of the walls, ceilings, bookcases, and anything else I could point the light at, to try create the right conditions to capture the perfect shot.




Two shots of Buggie. I didn't have enough light in the first picture, but at least she looks like herself.

The second shot is a profile view in which the viewer can appreciate her fluffiness and adorableness.








I only achieved success on one shot of Dickens, but even one is miraculous. He still isn't as handsome in the picture as he is in real life, but at least he is not a shiny black blob.


I'll have to practice more with the clip-on flash. I still have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm looking forward to more picture of my cats pretending to be photogenic!

Finding the Punctum

One of my favorite photographs is William Klein's "Mayday, Moscow" from 1959, which I first came across in Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida. Like Barthes, I am drawn to the studium of the photograph. For non-Barthes readers, studium is general interest in a photo, perhaps as a historical document. "Studium is of the order of liking, not of loving.... To recognize the studium is inevitably to encounter the photographer's intentions, to enter into harmony with them, to approve or disprove of them, but always to understand them..." (26-7). As Barthes notes, the photograph gives the modern, non-Russian viewer details of Russian dress in the 1950s. The kerchief, the cap, the jacket, all draw the curious eye. This may be why I like the photo, but it is not why I love it.

I find my eyes taking multiple paths through this picture. Sometimes I start in the upper right where I follow the man’s gaze to the man on the left, whom the first man certainly cannot see, though in the two-dimensional world of the photograph they are touching. I then look at the bearded man in the back and my eye roller-coasters down to the hat, the old woman, and then the boy, following the path of their heads, picking up speed as I go. Once I reach the bottom, my eyes slowly climb up to the man in the hat who is looking off to the right of the photograph. I follow his gaze, looking back up the path that I recently careened down. Then I find that I am looking back and forth, back and forth, from one man’s profile to the other, only stopping when I self-consciously notice the man in the upper left who has been staring at me all along. How embarrassing. When I look back at the photo, I am much more polite, giving each face the attention it deserves, while not staring so long as to make the figures uncomfortable. I linger on the old woman. Her face is bright, and the longer I look at her the brighter she seems. A glowing light in a sea of dark (even more so in the printed photo on page 29 of Camera Lucida than in the photo above). Is that why the two men are looking back at her? Like moths to a flame? When I squint my eyes, I see triangles and circles of black, rectangles and squares of grey, all surrounding the oval of light. When I reopen my eyes fully, I suddenly notice the incredible balance, bordering on symmetry, of the photograph. Two men, on either side of the picture, each look back and toward the other side. Both men have another man’s face to the left and back. Then, a gently curved line of heads runs down the middle. And it is only now, after noticing all of these things, that I finally wonder just what these people are doing. Why are they in this particular arrangement? Although it is possible that Klein has posed them, it feels much more like an incredible stroke of luck.

But as easy as it is for me to describe my fascination for this photo, it was difficult to pick out the punctum - what Barthes describes as something in the photo which wounds the viewer. I could see all the parts of the photo that I truly like, but it was too easy to describe why I like them. And like Barthes, I realize that "what I can name cannot really prick me" (51). Barthes explains that he often doesn't realize what the punctum is while he is viewing the photo; sometimes it comes to him in a realization later. I gave myself time away from the photo, hoping that the wound would show itself. Finally, glancing back at the photograph today, I realized it: My punctum is the boy's ear. I spent far less time studying the boy than I did the other subjects, however without him the photograph has merely interesting composition and not the ability to wound. Perhaps it is because the ear stands in for the eyes I cannot see, or maybe it is because the boy resembles my younger brother who also has protruding ears, or maybe it is that the ear blends into the woman's arm, causing the ear to look grotesquely large. Whatever the reason, I have found the punctum - the photograph's ability to wound and delight me.