In the second section of Camera Lucida, Barthes places more emphasis on how photographs reveal the truth. He uses an argument we have come back to again and again, which is the idea that a photograph exists as proof that something has happened. One cannot create a photograph of an event that never happened, and therefore, in some way, photographs always tell the truth — or at least a certain aspect of the truth. How accurate that representation of the truth really is remains debatable, especially in the age of digital photography, but what I am more interested in is another comment he made about portraiture in particular. His idea that a portrait of someone can capture something we never notice in actuality suggests that there is something almost more real about a photograph. In the sense that photography can capture such a short instance in time — a certain gesture or angle — that may reveal to us what we wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.
In one example, Barthes notes that photographs can reveal certain genetic features or similarities that we never notice. This brought to mind one particular image of my family from about 9 or 10 years ago (I think). My great-grandfather — we called him Pop — was still alive, and he was standing behind my dad and my little brother, the camera getting a profile of each of them, one behind the other. It wasn’t until I saw that picture developed that I realized they all have a distinctly similar nose. Unfortunately, the photo is sitting in a cabinet somewhere in my house, so I’ll have to wait until next time I’m home to find it.
I recently took a photo of my friend Dan at the drag show we host in our dorm once a semester, and it had a similar effect for him. This may not be quite what Barthes was talking about — the resemblance is probably due to the fact that Dan is wearing his mother’s wig, dress, and make-up — but it’s interesting how similar drag queen Dan is to mama Dan. Especially since it’s RJ, to his left, who seems to have been favoring the outdated jacket and plump, middle-aged woman type of style. I’m not sure what that says about his mother’s style, but either way, as soon as I put the picture up on Facebook, RJ and I marveled at the familiarity of Dan’s feminine side.
Has Dan’s mother seen this picture? Does *she* feel that there’s a family resemblance? Or does it feel for her that she’s looking at a photo of herself? (curious – there’s so much writing by offspring looking at pictures of their parents – and I know I look at earlier versions of my own parents, and see parts of me in them – but I rather unimaginatively haven’t thought much about *them* looking at pictures of *us* and seeing themselves when younger re-incarnated (or for all I know in Dan’s mother’s case, cloned – apart, one imagines, from the faintly hairy chest).