CAMERA LUCIDA

Roland Barthes believes it was chemists who invented photography. As a scientific circumstance, images are extracted by the action of light, producing one of kind photographs. “Photographs don’t call up the past, they prove that what you see has existed,” says Barthes. I agree, photographs offer immediate presence to the world and say what has been; they are the ultimate proof that something happened. Unlike language, which can’t be authenticated, photos are an evidential force. According to Barthes, the power of authentication exceeds the power of representation, and I agree. It’s always better to view/believe something with verification than a depiction. As a photographer, I believe in the power of photographs.