Temporality, Body, and Death

Photography captures a certain moment in time, and helps connect the past to the present the moment one analyzes a photograph of oneself or of the body of another from the past. When the viewer analyzes a photograph of a certain individual, who is no longer alive, he/she tries to recall those memories in which the person was alive. Hence, photography serves to capture memory while also reminding the viewer that life and the body are temporary and that death will eventually approach them. Each time viewers observe a personal photograph, they will appreciate it as a record of a certain time in their lives while also connecting that photograph to a future occurrence in life, which is eventually death. This blog will use theories from Roland Barthes Camera Lucida and the views of other photography analysts to show how photography highlights the temporality of the body and the inevitable death by capturing specific moments of a person’s life. 

Cyclist right before fatal accident during a race

            Sometimes photography is very crucial that it traps the image seen by the eye of the camera and preserves it allowing viewers to understand that the body is temporal and that each photograph of the body is a precursor to death. The photograph of the cyclist being run over by a car captures the last moment of his life. Such an incident relates to Harry Callahan’s note, “A photograph is able to capture a moment people can’t always see with their eyes” (McQuire 107).  The photograph not only conveys the method of the cyclist’s death, but also captures the last moment of his life. The timeless moment cannot be repeated since death occurs only once. However, photography preserves this moment and shows viewers how important each moment of one’s life is.

Child photograph of John F. Kennedy

           

John Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's casket

            Photography acts as a medium that connects the dead and their loved ones by allowing the past moments of the dead individual to communicate in the present. When analyzing the picture of his dead mother, Barthes mentions, “Now I claim to know – and to be able to say adequately – why, in what she consists. I want to outline the loved face by thought, to make it into the unique field of an intense observation” (Barthes 99). Barthes cannot see his mother’s face in reality. However, by observing the Winter Garden photograph which displays his mother during her childhood, he develops a connection to her and wants to observe and indulge into the photograph in order to understand and absorb the presence of his very own mother in it. Similarly, after the death of President John F. Kennedy, he was remembered through his photographs which represented moments of his existence in the past. The photograph of Kennedy as a young schoolboy is very similar to the picture of young Kennedy Jr. who salutes his deceased father at the president’s funeral. Viewers of the photograph and the loved ones of Kennedy would analyze the picture with optimism and happiness even though the overall message of the photograph is, the punctum/stigmatum (he is going to die) according to Barthes. The picture of Kennedy Jr. taken at the funeral after President Kennedy was assassinated shows the little boy’s respects to a person who is dead. However, the picture represents the beginning of Kennedy Jr.’s life which also ends in a tragic plane crash. This connection is very interesting to viewers and plays an important role in the photographic history of the Kennedy family. Both of these photographs tell viewers that a brightly starting life will eventually come to an end, but they also serve to connect viewers to the once lived legends John Kennedy and his son Jr. 

By - Ahdil Hameed 

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Douglas & McIntyre, 1980.\

McQuire, Scott. Visions of Modernity.London: Sage Publications, 1998.