'The Photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been.' Discuss

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'The Photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been.'

There are numerous avenues of photographic practice which attempt to portray and exhibit the subject of death and transition. From the Memento Mori (from the Latin ‘remember you will die’ or ‘remember your mortality’) which exists as a concept across several artistic disciplines (as well as photography), to the post-mortem photographic movement, in which the articulation of death and mortality is put across in a photographic art form, both of which are established and often overt (Martin, 1993). Particularly in popular culture the concepts of mortality and transition are purveyed frequently and the scopic regime of fashion photography has been largely dominated by dramatic and sensational imagery of death and transitory evolution for many years. As Barthes asserts:

“The fashion photograph is not just any photograph, it bears little relationship to the news photograph or the snapshot, for example; it has its own units and rules; within photographic communication, it forms a specific language” (Barthes, 1967)

For one to accurately interpret the quote 'the photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been' within the framework of Roland Barthes’ significant work on photography and the nature of the photograph, La Chambre claire (or Camera Lucida): Notes on photography (1980), this context should initially be appropriately addressed and outlined. Camera Lucida: Notes on photography was by no means the first work of note Barthes had carried out on the subject of photography but quickly became a key text on the criticism of the photographic image. As Geoffrey Batchen frequently asserts in his collection of essays about the Barthes text, Photography Degree Zero (Batchen, 2009) it is widely accepted that Camera Lucida: Notes on photography is (be it rightly or wrongly) one of the most influential and widely read books on the subject of photographic critique. Should the veracity of this statement hold steady then it must also be asked then why so when there is so little regard throughout given to ensuring this critique of the medium is comprehensive? It therefore becomes rather difficult to comprehend what a photographer might learn from such a text. Throughout the essay no consideration is given to photographic technique of any kind (Barthes himself was not a photographer) and neither is any acknowledgement given to any of the most salient of questions regarding the status of photography as a valid medium within the art world. Furthermore, throughout Camera Lucida: Notes on photography Barthes champions himself as a realist in the historical context of an era of postmodern artists and theorists who were quick with the criticism of the image as facade (Jenkins, 1991) whilst simultaneously denigrating the still image not only for its falsity but for its relationship to the macabre:

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“We know the original relation of the theater and the cult of the Dead: the first actors separated themselves from the community by playing the role of the Dead: to make oneself up was to designate oneself as a body simultaneously living and dead: the whitened bust of the totemic theater, the man with the painted face in the Chinese theater, the rice-paste makeup of the Indian Katha-Kali, the Japanese No mask ... Now it is this same relation which I find in the Photograph; however 'lifelike' we strive to make it (and this frenzy to be lifelike can only ...

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