The absence of that picture represents what he wants to say about the nature of photography and its ‘that-has-been’ quality that clings uncannily to the image. Barthes began writing it after his mother died in 1977 and there is one picture of his mother as a child that is central to the writing but which, despite all the other photographs he discusses being reproduced in the book, the reader is never allowed to see. No self-respecting student of photography would admit to not having read Camera Lucida and, because it is such a short book, easy to read and full of interesting observations, there is no good reason why anyone should. Photography Degree Zero: Reflections on Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida, edited by Geoffrey Batchen (MIT Press) Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes (Vintage Classics)
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