A Barthes Reader Camera Lucida Critical Essays The Eifel Tower and Other Mythologies Elements of Semiology Image-Musie-Text A Lover's Discourse Mythologies New Creal Essays On Racine The Pleasure of the Text Roland Barthes Sade/Fourier/ Loyola Siz Writing Degree Zero A BARTHES READER EDITED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY Susan Sontag UD Hits ano Wane ew voRK 4 on of Fear, Sas end GrThe Photographic Message Tr pes phonograph isa message Comidred overall this sneap formed by a source feson, a channs f rans Ison and a point of xeon, The sure of emion the Sat ofthe nowapepe he proup of tecicine crtln of Som fake the pot, some 6f whom choos, compose, and trea i hile other al give it til,» capon and 8 ommenay. hep of rsepton she plc which eas the paper As forte chanoe of ransmision, th he sews erie or, more precy a complex of content mex Sopwith te potogrgh x Cntr and rounds conned By ie text te ile the caption, the layout an, Jn & more shan tw os nr wy ye ne ae the paper (i mame representa owed that can hey rie ig othe mag cy pang: + tograph can changes meaning spats from the Wey tonsertatve Laure tote Communit Lumen), These eeratons ae not witoot heir iportace for ican rade iy be sen that in he cate of he pres photograph he tree teat pars of the message Go not ell for the sine From Image-Muse- Tes, tranalsted by Stephen Heath (New York: Hild Wang, 1978) 194 The Photographic Message sa 195 ‘method of investigation. The emission and the reception of the message both lie within the field of a sociology: itis a matter ‘of studying human groups, of defining motives and attitudes, and of trying to link the behavior ofthese groups to the social totality of which they area part. For the message itself, how- ever, the method is inevitably different: whatever the origin and the destination of the message, the photograph is not sim- ply @ product or a channel but also an object endowed with @ structural autonomy. Without in any way intending to divorce this object from its use, it is necessary to provide for a specific method prior to sociological analysis and which ean only be the immanent analysis of the unique structure that & photo- ‘graph constitutes. ‘Naturally, even from the perspective of a purely immanent analysis, the structure of the photograph is not an isolated Structure; it sin communieation with at lest one other struc- ture, namely the text—ttle, caption, or aticle—accompany- ing every press photograph. The totality of the information is thus carried by two diferent structures (one of which is in- esti). These two structures are cooperative but, since their ‘mis are heterogeneous, necessarily remain separate from one another: here (in the text) the substance of the message is ‘made up of words; there (in the photograph) of lines, sut- faces, shades. Moreover, the two structures of the message cach occupy their own defined spaces, these being contiguous bbut not “homogenized,” as they ae for example in the rebus, which fuses words and images in a single line of reading Hence, although a press photograph is aever without a writen ‘commentary, the analysis must frst of all bear on each sep- aate stractue; its only when the study ofeach structure has ‘been exhausted that it will be possible to understand the men- rer in which they complement one another, Of the two struc- tures, one is already familiar, that of language (but no, itis true, that ofthe “literature” formed by the language use of the196 Ge A BARTHES READER newspaper; an enormous amount of work is still to be done in this connection), while almost nothing is known about the ‘other, that ofthe photograph. What follows wil be limited to the definition ofthe inital dificulties in providing a structural analysis ofthe photographic message. ‘THE, PHOTOGRAPHIC PARADOX ‘What is the content of the photographic message? What does the photograph transmit? By definition, the scene itself, the literal reality. From the object to its image there is of course a reduction —in proportion, perspective, color—but at ro time is this reduction a transformation (in the mathemat cal sense of the term). In order to move from the reality to its photograph itis in no way necessary to divide up this reality into units and to constitute these uaits as signs, substantially diferent fom the object they communicate; there is no neces- sity to set up a relay, that is to say a code, between the object and its image. Certainly the image isnot the reality But at Teast itis its perfect analogon and it is exactly this analogical pet~ fection which, to common sense, defines the photograph, Thus ‘canbe seen the special status ofthe photographic image: i i ‘@ message without a code; fom which proposition an impor tant corollary must immediately be drawn: the photographic message is a continuous message. "Are there other messages without a code? A‘ fist sight, yes precisely the whole range of analogical reproductions of reality ~arawings, paintings, cinema, theater, In fact, however, each ‘of those messages develops in an immediate and obvious way ‘a supplementary message, in addition tothe analogical content itself (scene, objec, landscape), which is whet is commonly called the style of the reproduction; second meaning, whose signifier is certain “treatment” of the image (result of the action ofthe creator) and whose signified, whether aesthetic (oF ideological, refers to certain “culture” of the society re The Photographic Message «a5 197 ceiving the message. In short, all these “imitative” arts com- Prise two messages: a denoted message, which is the analogon itself, and a connoted message, which is the manner in which the society to a certain extent communicates what it thinks of it. This duality of messages is evident in all reproductions ‘other than photographie ones: there is no drawing, no matter how exact, whose very exactitude is not turned into a style (the style of “verism”); no filmed scene whose objectivity is not finally read asthe very sign of objectivity. Here agnin, the study of these connoted messages has stl tobe carried out (in particular ithas tobe decided whether what i called @ work of art can be reduced to a system of signications); one ean only antieipate that forall these imitative arts—when common— the code of the connoted system is very likely constituted eb ther by 2 universal symbolic order or by a period rhetori, in short by a stock of stereotypes (schemes, colors, graphisms, gestures, expressions arrangements of elements). ‘When wc come to the photograph, however, we fil in pine ciple nothing of the kind, at any rate as regards the press photograph (which is never an “artiste” photograph). The photograph professing to be a mechanical analogue af reality, its first-order message in some sort completely fills its sub- stance and leaves no place for the development of a second- cotder message. OF all the structures of information, the pho- tograph appears as the only one that is exclusively constituted and occupied by a “denoted” message, a message which totally ‘exhausts is mode of existence. In front of a photograph, the feeling of “denotation,” or, if one prefers, of analogical pleni= tude, isso great that the description of a photograph i literally cf oferalnal sare Mien for Sarl comes dete re wihoat ny coe a shoud me soo ven fing oo (or trtacr anager ole ta rile of inte dn iinaiy prety ater ogc ake o's va) ‘ny conta nce Esper snc198 Ge A BARTHES READER impossible; to describe consists precisely in joining tothe de- noted message a relay or second-order message deve from a code which is that of language and constituting in relation to the photographic analogie, however much cae on takes tobe exact, a connotation: to describe is thus not simply to be ‘imprecise oF incomplete its to change structures, 1 sipity something diferent rom what sshown.* ‘This purely “denotatve” status ofthe photograph, the per {ection and plenitude of is analogy, in short its “ebjectvy has every chance of being mythical (these are the charactrle ties that common sense atibutes to the photograph). In actual fac, there is a strong probability (and this will be a ‘working hypothesis) that the photographic message too at leas inthe press—isconnoted. Connotaton isnot necesearily immediately graspable at che lvel ofthe message itself (iis, ‘one could say, at once invisbie and active, clear and implicit) but it can already be inferred from certain phenomena which ‘occur atthe levels of the production and reception ofthe message: on the one hand, the press photograph is an object that has been works! on, chosen, composed, constructed, treated according 10 profesional, sesthstie, ideological ‘norms which ate so many factors of connotation; wife on the ‘other, this same photograph i no only pereive, received, 4s read, connected more ot less consciously by the public that consunies if (0 a trations stock of sign. Since reery sign Supposes a code, itis this code (af connotation) that one should try to establish. The photographic paradox ean then be seen a the co-existence of two messages, the one without 2 code (the photographic analogue), the other wth a code (the “ae. o the treatment, or the "writing," ofthe shetori, of the photograph); structurally the paradox is clealy not the col te denn of dig bene, ving, ny, te dcp rose a ay one i ten ei eh ese eae that chloe es ef ga a ‘otis a very ew poe ‘The Photographic Message «a 199 sion of a denoted message and a connoted message (which is the—probably inevitable—status of all the forms of mace communication), iis that here the connoted (or coded) mer. sage develops on the basis of a message without a code. This Structural paradox coincides with an ethical paradox: ‘when one wants to be “neutral,” “objective,” one strives to eopy ‘ality meticulously, as though the analogical were a fare of resistance against the investment of values (such at fest ie the definition of aesthetic “realism”; how then ean the photo. ‘aph be at once “objective” and “invested,” natural ard col, ‘ural? Its through an understanding of the mode of imbrica, tion of denoted and connoted messages that t may one day be Possible to reply to that question. In order to undertake this work, however, it must be remembered that since the denoted _message inthe photograph is absolutely analogical, which i 9 ‘8Y continuous, ouside of any recourse to code, there is no nee to lok forthe signifying units ofthe fonder message, the connoted message on the contrary does comprise plane ctexpression anda plan of content, thus necessitating aver table decipherment, Such a deciperment would as yet be pre smature, for in order to isolate the signifying unite andthe ‘ignifed themes (or values) one would have to carry out (Perhaps using tests) directed readings, artificially vary tain elements of a photograph to sce ifthe variations of forms Jed w variations in meaning, What can atleast be done now is {0 forecast the min planes of analysis of photographie con. notation, CONNOTATION PROCEDURES Connetation, the imposition of second meaning on the pho- ‘ographic message proper, is realized at the diferent levels of the production ofthe photograph (choice, technical treatment, framing, layout) and represents, finaly, «coding ofthe photo, raphe analogue, It is thus possible to separate out various200 es connotation procedures, beating in mind however that these procedures are in no way units of signification such as a sub- Sequent analysis of a semantic kind may one day manage to define; they are not still speaking part ofthe photographic structure. The procedures in question are familiar and no more will be attempted here than 0 translate them into stroctural terms, To be fully exact, the fist three (trick effets, pose, objects) should be distinguished from the last three (photo- _genia, astheticism, syntax), since in the former the connota- tion is produced by a modification ofthe reality itself of, that is, the denoted message (such preparation is obviously not peculiar tothe photograph). If they are nevertheless included among the connotation procedures, its because they too bene- fit from the prestige of the denotation: the photograph allows the photographer to conceal elusvely the preparation to which hae subjects the scene to be recorded, Yet the fat stil remtins that there is no certainty from the point of view of a subse- ‘quent structural analysis that it wil be possible to take into sccount the material they provide 1. Trick eects. A photograph given wide circulation inthe “American press in 1951 is reputed to have cost Senator Mil- lard Tydings his seat; it showed the Senator in conversation with the Communist leader Earl Browder. Infact, the photo- graph had boon faked, erented by the artical bringing to- Bgelher of the two faces. The methodologieal interest of trick effects is that they intervene without warning inthe plane of notation; they utilize the special credibility of the photo- sgraph—this, as was seen, being simply its exceptional power $f denotation—in order to pass off as merely denoted a mes- sage which i in reality heavily connoted; in no other treatment does connotation assume so completely the “objective” mask ‘of denotation. Naturally, signification is only possible to the extent that there isa stock of signs, the beginnings of a code. ‘The signifier here is the conversational atitude of the two The Photographic Message <0 201 figures and it will be noted that this attitude becomes a sign only for a certain society, only given certain values. What makes the speaker attitude the sign of a reprehensible fa- nilirity isthe ttehy antiCommunism of the American elec- torate; which is to say that the code of connotation is neither tfcial (asin a tru language) nor natural, but historical 2. Pose. Consider a press photograph of President Kennedy Widely distributed atthe time of the 1960 election: hall Tength profile shot, eyes-looking upward, hands joined to- gether. Here itis te very pose of the subject which prepares the reading of the sgifeds of connotation: youthfulness, spit ituality, purty. The photograph clearly only signifies because ‘of the existence of «store of stereotyped atitudes which form ready-made elements of signification (eyes raised heavenward, hands clasped). “historical grammar” of iconographic con notation ought thus to look for its material in painting, theater, associations of idess, stock metaphors, etc, that is to say, precisely in “culture” As has been said, pose isnot a speci cally photographic procedure, but itis dificult not to mention it insotar as it derives is effect from the analogical principle at the basis of the photograph. The message in the present ia stance is not “the pose” but “Kennedy praying”: the reader receives asa simple denotation what is in actual fact a double structure—denoted-connated. 3. Objects. Special importance must be accorded to what could be ealled the posing of objects, where the meaning comes from the objects photographed (cither because these objects have, ifthe photographer had the time, been artificially arranged infront of the camera or because the person respon sible for layout chooses a photograph of this or that object). "The interest losin the fact thatthe objects are accepted in- ‘ducers of associations of ideas (bookcase = intellectual) of more abseure way, are veritable symbols (the door of the _g chamber for Chessman’s execution with its reference tothe202 Be A BARTHES READER fancral gates of ancient mythologies). Such objects constitute excellent elements of signification: on the one hand they are discontinuous and complete jn themselves, a physical qu cation fora sign, while on the other they refer 10 clear, ‘ilar signifieds. They are thus the clements of a veritable lexicon, stable to degree which allows them to be readily constituted into syntax. Here, for example, is a “composition” of objects: a window opening on to vineyards and tiled roots; in front of the window @ photograph album, a magnifying lass, a vase of flowers. Consequently, we are in the country. South of the Loire (vines and tiles), in a bourgeois house (lowers on the table) whose owner, advanced in years (the ‘magnifying glass) is reliving his memories (the photograph album)—Frangois Mouriac in Malagar (photo in Parise ‘Maich). The connotation somehow “emerges” from all these signifying units which are nevertheless “captured” as though the scene were immediate and spontaneous, that js to say, ‘without sigaiiation The text renders the connotation explicit, developing the theme of Mauriac’s tes with the land, Objects no longer perhaps possess a power, but they certainly possess meanings. 4. Phoiogenia. The theory of photogenia has already been developed (by Edgar Morin in Le Cinéma ou Phomme imagi- naire) and this isnot the place to take up again the subject of the general signification of that procedure; it will sufice to define photogenia in terms of informational structure. In pho- Yogenia the connoted message is the image itself, “embel- lished” (which i to say, in general sublimated) by techniques of lighting, exposure, and printing, An inventory needs to be rade ofthese techniques, but only insofar as each of them has a corresponding signified of connotation sufficiently constant to allow its incorporation in a cultural lexicon of technical “effects” (as for instance the “blurring of movement” or “ftowingness” launched by Dr. Steinert and his team to signify The Photographic Message a5, 203 space-time). Such an inventory would be an excellent oppor- tunity for distinguishing aesthetic effects from signifying effects unless perhaps it be recognized that in photography, con- trary to the intentions of exhibition photographers, there is never art but always meaning; which precisely would at last provide an exact criterion for the opposition between good painting, even if strongly representational, and photography. 5. Aestheticsm. For if one can talk of aesteticism in pho- tography, its seemingly in an ambiguous fashion: when pho- ‘ography turns painting, composition, or visual substance ‘woated with deliberation in its very material “texture,” it is either so as to signify itself as “are” (which was the ease with the “pitorialiem” of the beginning of the century) or to im= pote a generally more subtle and complex signified than would bbe possible with ether connotation procedures. Thus Cartier ‘Bresson constructed Cardinal Pacel’s reception by the faith- ful of Lisieux lke a painting by an early master. The resulting photograph, however, is in n0 way a painting: on the one hand, its display of aesteticism refers (damagingly) to the very idea of a painting (which is contrary to any true paint- ing); while on the other, the composition signifies in a de- clared manner a certain ecstatic spirituality translated pre- cisely in terms of an objective spectacle, One can see here the diference between photograph and painting: in a picture by a Primitive, “spirituality” is not a signified but, as it were, the very being of the image. Certainly there may be coded ele- ‘mons in some paintings, thetorical figures, period symbols, but no signifying uni refers to spirituality, which is a mode of ‘being and not the object ofa structured message. 6. Syntax. We have already considered a discursive reading of object-signs within a single photograph. Naturally, several photographs can come together to form a soquence (this is commonly the casein illustrated magazines); the sigifer of connotation is then no longer to be found atthe level of any204 fe A BARTHES READER fone of the fragments of the sequence but at that—what the linguists would call the suprasegmental level—of the con- catenation. Consider for example four snaps of a presidential shoot at Rambouille: in each, the ilustrous sportsman (Vin- ‘cent Auriol) is pointing his rifle in some unlikely direction, to the great peril ofthe keepers who run away of fing themselves to the ground. The sequence (and the sequence alone) offers an effect of comedy which emerges, according to a familiar procedure, from the repetition and variation ofthe attitudes. It fan be noted in this connection that the single photograph, contrary tothe drawing, is very rarely (chat is only with much lificulty) comic; the comic requires movement, which is to say repetition (easy in flm) or typification (possible in draw- ing), both these “connotations” being prohibited tothe photo- TEXT AND IMAGE Such are the main connotation procedures of the photo- graphic image (once again, it i a question of techniques, not of units). To these may invariably be added the text which ‘accompanies the press photograph, Three remarks should be ‘made inthis conte, Firstly, the text constitutes a parasitic message designed to connote the image, to “quicken” i with one or more second order signifieds, In other words, and this is an important his- torical reversal, the image no longer illustrates the words itis ‘now the words which, structurally, are parasitic on the image. ‘The reversal is ata cost: inthe traditional modes of illust tion the image functioned as an episodic return to denotation from a principal message (the text) which was experienced as ‘conoted since, precisely t needed an illustration; in there tionship that now holds i is not the image which comes to lucidate or “realize” the text, but the later which comes to sublimate, patheticize, or rationalize the image, As however The Photographic Message «a8, 205 this operation is carried out accessorily, the new informational totality appears to be chielly founded on an objective (de- noted) message in relation to which the text is only @ kind of secondary vibration, almost without consequence, Formerly, the image illustrated the text (made it learer); today, the text loads the image, burdenng it with a culture, a moral, an imag- ination, Formerly, there was reduction from text to image: today, there is amplication from the one to the other, The ‘connaation is now experienced only a the natural resonance of the fundamental denotation constituted by the photographic analogy and we are thus confronted with atypical process of naturalization ofthe cultural. Secondly, the effet of connotation probably differs accord- ing to the way in which the text is presented, The closer the text to the image, the less it seems to connote it; caught as it ‘were in the iconographic message, the verbal message seems to shace in its objectivity, the connotation of language is “inno- ‘ented through the photographs denotaton, It ie true that there is never a real incorporation since the substances of the two structures (graphic and iconic) are irreducible, but there are most likely degrees of amalgamation. The caption prob- ably hase less obvious effect of connotation than the headline or accompanying article: headline and article are palpably separate from the image, the former by is emphasis, the later by its distance; the ist because it break, the other because it distances the content of the image. The eaption, on the con- trary, by its very disposition, by its average measure of read- ing, appears to duplicate the image, that is, to be included in its denotation, 1s impossible however (and this will be the final remark. here concerning the text) that the words “duplicate” the mage; in the movement from one structure to the other sec- ‘ond signifeds are inevitably developed. What is the relation- ship of these signifeds of connotation to the image? To all206 be appearances, itis one of making expt, of providing a stress; the text most often simply amplifying a set of connotations teady given in the photograph. Sometimes, however, the (ext produces (invents) a emiely new signified which 6 reeoac- ively projected into the image, so much s0 as to appear de- poted there. "They were near to death, their faces prove it!” reads the headline t0 a photograph showing Elizabeth and Philip leaving a plane—but at the moment of the photograph the two sul knew nothing of the accident they had just € ‘aped. Sometimes, (00, the text can even contradict the image Sovas to produce a compensatory connotation, An analysis by Gerbaer (The Social Anatomy of the Romance Confession ‘Cover Girl) demonstrated that in certain romance magazines the verbal messege of the headlines, gloomy and anguished, on the cover always eccompanied the image of a radiant cover pir here the two messages enter into compromise, the Com Sotation having «regulating function, preserving the irrational movement of projection identification. A BARTHES READER PHOTOGRAPHIC INSIGNIFICANCE |We saw that the code of connotation was in all likelihood neither “natural” nor “artificial” but historical, or, i it be preferred, “cultura.” Its sign are gestures, atiudes, expres Fons, colors, or effects, endowed with exrtain meanings by Wirtue of the pracice of « certain society: the link between Tignifer and signified remains, i{ not unmotivated, at Yast ttzely historical, Hence itis wrong to say that modern man projets into reading photographs fetings and values which Ure eharacteval or “eternal” (infra or trans-histoical), unless ite firmly specified that signification is always developed by & fiven society and history Sigification, in sor, isthe dalct- fal movement which resolves the contradiction between cul tural and natural man. "Thanks to its code of connotation the reading ofthe photo- ‘The Photographic Message +05 207 graph is thus always historical; it depends on the reader's nowledge” just as though it were a matter ofa real language TTanguel,intligible only if one has Teerned the signs. All things considered, te photographic “language” {“Tangage”] is not ule certain deographic languages which mix analogical land specifying units, the difference being thatthe ideogram is experienced as a sgn whereas the photographic “copy” is taken asthe pure and simple denotation of reality. To fin this ‘ode of connotation would thus be to isolate, inventoiate, and Structure all the “hstorical” elements of the photograph all the parts of the photographie surface which derive their very discontinuity from 2 certain knowledge on the reader's pat, ‘of, if one prefers, from the reader’ cultural situation. "This task will perhaps take us a very long way indeed. [Nothing tells us thatthe photograph contains “neutral” parts, ‘or at least it may be that compete insignificance in the photo- raph is quite exceptional. To resolve the problem, we would fiat of all need to elucidate fully the mechanisms of reading (in the physical, end no longer the semantic, sense of the term), ofthe perception of the photograph. But on this point ive kaow very ltl, How do we read a photograph? What do ive perceive? In what order, according to what progression? If, Us i suggested by certain hypotheses of Bruner and Piaget, there is no perception without immediate categorization, then the photograph is verbalized in the very moment it is pet= cxved; beter, it & only perceived verbalized (if there is delay in verbalizaion, there is disorder in perception, que tioning, anguish for the subject, traumatism, following G. ‘Cohen Séat's hypothesis with regard to filmic perception). From this point o! view, the image—grasped immediately by an inner metalangiage, language itself—in actual fact has 20 Senoted state, is immersed for its very social existence in at teast an initia layer of connotation, that of the categories of Tenguage. We know that every language takes up a postion203 fe «A BARTHES READER with regard to things, that it connotes reality, if only in divid- ing it up; the connotations of the photograph would thus coin- cide, grosso modo, with the overall connotative planes of language. In addition to “perceptive” connotation, hypothetical but possible, one then encounters ether, more particular, modes of ‘connotation, and firstly a “eognitive” connotation whose sig- nies are picked out, localized, in certain parts of the analo- gon. Faced with such and such’ towascape, I know that this is a North African country because on the left I can see a sign in Arabic script, inthe center a man wearing a gendoura, and 0 on. Here the reading closely depends on my culture, on my knowledge of the world, and itis probable that a good press Photograph (and they are all good, being selected) makes ready play with the supposed knowledge ofits readers, those pins being chosen which comprise the greatest posible quan- tity of information of this kind in such a way a$ to render the reading full satisfying. If one photographs Agar in ruin, it is better to have a few signs of “Arabness” at one's disposal, even though “Arabness” has nothing to do with the disaster itself; connotation drawn from knowledge is always @ reassur- ing force—man likes signs and likes them clear Perceptive connotation, cognitive connotation; there re- ‘mains the problem of ideological (inthe very wide sense of the term) or ethical connotation, that which introduces reasons or ‘Values info the reading of the image. This i a strong connota- tion requiting a highly elaborated signifier of a readily syn- tactical order: conjunction of people (as wes seen in the liscusson of trick effects), development of attitudes, constel= lation of objects. A son has just been born to the Shah of Iran and in & photograph we have: royalty (cot worshipped by a crowd of servants gathering round), wealth (several nurse- ‘aids, hygiene (white coats, cot covered in Plexiglas), the ‘nevertheless human condition of kings (the baby is erying)— The Photographic Message se, 209 all the clement, that is ofthe myth of princely birth as i is consumed today. Tn this instance the values are apolitical and their lexicon is abundant and clear. It is possible (but this is ‘only a hypothesis) that political connotation is generally en- teusted to the text, insofar as politcal choices are always, were, in bed faith: for a particular photograph I can give a right-wing reading or a left-wing reading (see in thie connee- tion an TFOP survey published by Ler Temps Modernes in 1955). Denotation, o the appearance of denotation, is power- less to alter politcal opinions: no photograph has ever con vinced or refuted anyone (but the photograph can “confirm” insofar as politieal consciousness is perhaps nonexistent out- side the logo: pois is what allows all languages ‘These few remarks sketch a kind of differential teble of photographic connotations, showing, if nothing else, that con- notation extends a long way. Is this to say that a pure denota- tion, a thisside of language, is impossible? I such a denota- tion exists, it is perhaps not at the level of what ordinary language calls the insignificant, the neural, the objective, but, ‘on the contrary, at the level of absolutely traumatic images. ‘The trauma is a suspension of language, a blocking of mean- ing, Certainly situations which are normally traumatic can be seized in a process of photographic signification but then pre- cisely they are indicated via a rhetorical code which distances, sublimates and pacifis them, Truly traumatic photographs are rare, for in photography the trauma is wholly dependent on the certainty thatthe scene “realy” happened: the photogra- her had 10 be there (the mystical definition of denotation). ‘Assuming this (Which, infact, is alzeady a connotation), the traumatic photograph (ices, shipwrecks, catastrophes, violent eaths, all captured “from life as lived") is the photograph about which there is nothing to say; the shock photo is by structute insignificant: no value, no knowledge, at the limit no verbal categorization can have ahold onthe process isttating210 Ge A BARTHES READER the signification. One could imagine a kind of law: the more direct the trauma, the more difienlt is connotation; or agai, the “mythological effect of a photograph is inversely propor tional to its traumatic effect. Why? Doublless because photographie connotation, like every well-structured sgntiation, isan institutional activity; in relation to society overall, its function is to integrate ma to reassure him, Every code is at once arbitrary and rational recourse to a code is thus always an opportunity for man to prove himself, to test himself through a reason and a liberty. In this sense the analysi of codes perhaps allows an easier ‘and suter historical definition ofa society than the analysis of its signitieds, for the latter ean often appear as trans-hisorca, belonging more to an anthropological base than to a proper history. Hegel gave better definition of the ancient Grocks by outlining the manner ia which they made natue signify than bby deseribing the totality oftheir “feelings and beliefs" on the subject. Similarly, we can perhaps do better than to take stock directly of the ideological contents of our age; by trying to reconsltue in ils specific structure the code of connotation of mode of communication a¢ important as the press photo- graph we may hope to find, in their very sublety, the forms ‘our society uses to ensure its peace of mind and to grasp thereby the magnitude, the detours, and the underlying func- tion of that sctvity. The prospect is the more appealing in that, as was said atthe beginning, it develops with regard to the photograph in the form of a paradox—that which makes of an inert object a language and which transforms the uncul- ture of a “mechanical” art into the most social of institution. 1961