The erotic photograph, on the contrary (and this is its very condition), does not make the sexual organs into a central object it may very well not show them at all it takes the spectator outside its frame, and it is there that I animate this photograph and that it animates me. Pornography ordinarily represents the sexual organs, making them into a motionless object (a fetish), flattered like an idol that does not leave its niche for me, there is no punctum in the pornographic image at most it amuses me (and even then, boredom follows quickly). The presence (the dynamics) of this blind field is, I believe, what distinguishes the erotic photograph from the pornographic photograph. A proof a contrario: Mapplethorpe shifts his close-ups of genitalia from the pornographic to the erotic by photographing the fabric of underwear at very close range: the photograph is no longer unary, since I am interested in the texture of the material. In Camera Lucida, Barthes suggests that there are two elements to every photograph. Like a shop window which shows only one illuminated piece of jewelry, it is completely constituted by the presentation of only one thing: sex: no secondary, untimely object ever manages to half conceal, delay, or distract. Roland Gérard Barthes (/ b r t / French: l bat 12 November 1915 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician.His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture.

It is always a naive photograph, without intention and without calculation. It is simultaneously an inquiry into the nature and essence of photography and a eulogy to Barthes' late mother. It has become a classic text on the subject yet Barthes was not a photographer, and had little time for colour images or ‘clever theories’ from the photographer’s perspective (such as Cartier-Bresson’s ‘Decisive Moment’). Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography ( French: La Chambre claire) is a short book published in 1980 by the French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes. Nothing more homogeneous than a pornographic photograph. Camera Lucida, by Roland Barthes, is an odd book.

“Another unary photograph is the pornographic photograph (I am not saying the erotic photograph: the erotic is a pornographic that has been disturbed, fissured).

Camera lucida by roland barthes