Posing and Photography as Transition to Object.

          This photograph was taken at the San Diego Zoo. It is a photo of me trying my best to mimic the pose of this statue of a gorilla. The caption states “We didn’t even plan this…”.  In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes examines the use of posing and its role in using photography to create an identity for oneself. In being photographed, he explains, “I pose, I know I am posing, I want you to know that I am posing. […] What I want, in short, is that my (mobile) image […] coincide with my (profound) self” (Barthes Camera Lucida 12). In other words, Barthes uses a certain pose as an attempt to create his identity for the spectator.  For this reason, “photography is anything but subtle” (Ibid, 12) as it forces the referent to create an identity – something that takes conscious effort and very rarely appears natural.

            In this photo, I am posing in such a way to accomplish a couple things: first to point out how ridiculous the statue is, and second to show my creativity. In doing so, I am trying to construct an identity for myself. In essence, I want people to think I am funny – someone who does not take things too seriously and likes to have a good time.  If the camera were not present, I would not be making such an effort to emulate this statue (at least I hope not). It is only once I am aware I am under the scope of the lens of the camera, that I feel I must pose in a certain way to reveal my true self.  Therefore, I use photography in my life as mechanism to relate how I view myself with how society views me. I use photography to unite these two views and ultimately establish an identity of my true self.

            Barthes never feels like himself when he is in front of the camera.  He explains, “I do not stop imitating myself, and because of this, each time I am (or let myself be) photographed, I invariably suffer from a sensation of inauthenticity, sometimes of imposture” (Ibid, 13). By trying so hard to construct a duplication of his true self in his pose, Barthes feels as if he is on the outside trying to act as himself.  In other words, when he is in front of the lens he is no longer Roland Barthes, but rather a man trying to appear as Barthes – he is an imposter. In this way, “the Photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity” (Ibid, 12). In this photo of me pretending to be attacked by the cougar statue, I am poking fun at the inauthenticity of the pose of the statue in such a way to highlight this inauthenticity Barthes feels every time he poses for a photograph.  When being photographed, we are no longer ourselves. Rather, we are a combination of who we think we are, who we want others to think we are, who the photographer thinks we are, and who the photographer wants us to be (for the sake of his or her art).

            As one subject, it is not possible to be all these different identities at once. However, Barthes says “the Photograph (the one I intend) represents that very subtle moment when, to tell the truth, I am neither subject nor object but a subject who feels his becoming an object: I then experience a micro-version of death: I am truly becoming a specter” (Ibid, 14). In other words, in transitioning from subject to object, it is like dying.  As an object now, you are able to represent this combination of identities as Barthes claims “the Photograph creates my body or mortifies it, according to its caprice” (11).  It is this mortification or deadening that de-animates a subject and converts him or her to an object - an object that is defined by an act (or pose) and now serves to represent the subject.

Barthes becomes an object in posing and I am a body posing as an object in these two photographs. How then, can an object transition to a subject? And what would the effects of this be? For the remainder of this blog, I will use spirit photography to epitomize this transformation and assess the reasons objects become subjects and the effects of such a phenomenon.