Family Photos By The Christmas Tree
The hand is an icon of action, of doing. The figure represents more than might or sympathy, but the seeming duality melded into the single meaning of strength. And this representation of power, which may be unchained or restrained is captured most efficiently in the act of photography, where the hand guides the eye. Peering into the viewfinder of the average camera is looking into a lens lifted by a hand; the lens, and therefore the eye makes its foundation on that hand. This system of power is beyond the hand’s control, transferred to the ones controlling the hand: the muscle that stabilizes the camera, and the mind that wills that the photograph be taken. A whole internal process works with the taking of the photograph, one that is unseen and most often, discarded but this play of power exists whether or not it is studied. Consider these two family portraits. The photograph above is one I took of my friend’s family using my tito’s camera, the man standing on the far right of the picture. The one below is a picture the same tito took of me and my family. There is a reversal of roles occurring, as operator to spectrum and vice versa (though in both instances, I became spectator of the final product).
The different bodily movements obeying internal commands that aim at two different objectives intervene with the meaning being made in the photograph. The studium is more or less the same in both instances, a photograph of Christmas cheer, a family’s show of happiness. With me steadying my hand as operator, the angle of the shot, the clarity of the view, and, to an extent, each member’s positioning
was my choice. The power is obviously in the operator’s hands. As spectator, the only things I could really control were my own actions subject to the limits of the viewfinder and the operator. And yet meaning is not wholly governed by the power of the eye, or rather the hand. Prior to the photograph being taken, a consciousness, of the subject or of the self attempts to predict the photograph, but afterwards, the center of the photograph, the wound or punctum is laid out and much of the meaning, in the form of loving (or loathing) is derived from that crux. In the picture that I took, the punctum is the sculpture by Cacnio strangely pushed to the side of the table to make room for a large Christmas ornament. In the picture taken of me and my family, it is firstly, the twirl in my hair, back when the emo look was held in better account, secondly the chubbiness of my younger brother in white with army print shirt because he has slimmed down and is hardly recognizable in the picture, and thirdly, how overly-dressed my mother was which was a joke we long held onto, and so on. As operator, I am outside the field being taken. When I come as spectator, punctum comes in the subtle strangeness of the photograph. But as part of the spectrum, despite having little control of the prediction, the meaning is multiplied. There is even a cascading of the punctum because the photograph is a string of memories held tightly by the moment taken. The punctum does exist to heighten interest within the photograph into one of wounding or intimacy, as Barthes announced. And the struggle for power is, as it often unfolds, between viewer and spectacle but this struggle does not translate to the meaning-making. The operator acts as gatekeeper but once the end product is shown, only the spectator has the ability to choose how to make sense of the photograph. There is also a heirarchy of punctum, partially contrary to Barthes’ statement that there is only the one striking feature of the photograph, but this is only unearthed by the power of nostalgia. (Rupert IV A. Bustamante)