Barthes and Mediocre Photography

So we've all been there: Floating in the endless sea of photographs that don't mean a thing to you. And they tend to fall into categories too. The photography student's pictures of their and other friends' tiny and cute feet. The looking-up-at-monolith shots: these vary considerably but usually include Baird Point or very tall building. The classic shot at arm's length back towards oneself. This is one of the worst, becoming known as the 'Myspace Shot.' There's even the classic rear-view mirror shot, a spontaneous occurance which usually springs from shooting out the window of a car and seeing one's own visage.

This is the more contemporary and banal end of Barthes' interest in the punctum and studium. Where Barthes' personal essay focused on that which mattered to him, he left the rest of the body of photography to focus on that which is important but not piercing. Along with or beside the studium lies the rest of photography's body: the cute toes and tall buildings of banality.

Most of these works are not even 'punctum' to the photographers themselves. They are simply images, bereft of care, wonder, importance, labor, etc. They pile up like wet smelly leaves. Never raked, never burned.