> Skip to content
  • Published: 5 October 1993
  • ISBN: 9780099225416
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 144
  • RRP: $22.99

Camera Lucida

Reflections on Photography





‘Roland Barthes' final book - less a critical essay than a suite of valedictory meditations - is his most beautiful, and most painful’ Observer

Barthes shares his passionate, in-depth knowledge and understanding of photography.

Examining the themes of presence and absence, the relationship between photography and theatre, history and death, these 'reflections on photography' begin as an investigation into the nature of photographs. Then, as Barthes contemplates a photograph of his mother as a child, the book becomes an exposition of his own mind.

  • Published: 5 October 1993
  • ISBN: 9780099225416
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 144
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the College de France until his death in 1980.

Also by Roland Barthes

See all

Praise for Camera Lucida

Of all his works it is the most accessible in language and the most revealing about the author. And effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader

Guardian

I am moved by the sense of discovery in Camera Lucida, by the glimpse of a return to a lost world

New Society

Profoundly shaped the way the medium is regarded

Geoff Dyer, Guardian

Roland Barthes' final book - less a critical essay than a suite of valedictory meditations - is his most beautiful, and most painful

Observer

Of all his works it is the most accessible in language and the most revealing about the author. And effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader

Guardian

I am moved by the sense of discovery in Camera Lucida, by the glimpse of a return to a lost world

New Society

Profoundly shaped the way the medium is regarded

Geoff Dyer, Guardian