A Writing on Bernard Plossu

©Bernard Plossu

This image of Plossu’s photo held in his hand may as well be anyone’s photo in anyone’s hand because the image doesn’t address the subject of the photo or the identity of the hand holding the photo, but rather the materiality of the photo itself and the way in which it represents an object out in the world.

This photo is a representation of the object and also the signifier (the original photo). For the purposes of this writing, ”reality” will mean a thing or event that is out in the world, something we perceive that is outside of our bodies. In order to understand exactly how much photography has an impact on our perceived notions of reality, we need to first understand the process in which reality is re-presented.

By process, I do not mean a study of the technical specifications of the camera. The understanding of how a camera or a lighting setup functions is assumed to be already known. What I mean by process is the relationship these functions have to the reality that they are in contact with; how a shallow depth of field may blur many aspects of an event being photographed, how a specific type of black-and-white film may place a landscape into a different time period, etc. All of these processes create perceived notions of reality that came to fruition in the mind’s eye of the photographer. The photographer “sees” how the image will be from their knowledge of the processes they employ. It is a seemingly standard way of photographic creation that, all to often, is taken for granted or ignored completely when one looks at a photograph. It is a two-step approach; one through seeing the object (reality) in with the eye and the other through envisioning the process applied. Much of the technical aspect of the process is usually invisible to the viewer; only a trained eye can decipher some of the techniques employed. This invisibility of process makes us want to believe that what we see in the photograph is a true representation of reality. But, the very transformation of the thing out in the world to a two-dimensional piece of paper already takes the “real” and contorts it into a thing that is represented by the very limitations that the photographic process entails. The existence of the thing photographed is not what is depicted, what is depicted is a play of processes around that thing; light, exposure, white balance, film type, etc. This creates the image and thus creates that particular representation of an object.

Barthes says that photography is unique from painting because it is proof or evidence of an object that existed at the time the photograph was made. An object in a painting can be something that has never existed, that the artist has created in their mind. This makes it difficult for the viewer to believe that any painting represents reality. However, while photography is a mechanical process that can be interpreted as objective, as Barthes clearly emphasizes, it is still a process of representation that is employed by an operator, it does not necessarily represent what is real.