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skal body of Information: rebcllion, Nicaragua, and all thc signs of both: wrctched un-uniformed soldiers, ruined strects, corpses, grief, the sun, and thc heavy-liddcd Indian eyes. Thousands of photographs consist of this field, and in thcsc photographs I can, of course, take a kind of generał imerest, one thar is even stirred sometimes, but in regard to them my emotion requires che rational inter-mediary of an ethical and political culture. What 1 feel about these photographs derives from an (Uerjge affect, ałmost from a cetrain ttaining. I did not know a French word which might account fot this kind of human inrercsr, but I believe this word exists in Latin: it js studium, which doesn‘t mcan, at least not immediately, "study,"but ap-plication to a thing, taste for somcone, a kind of generał, enthusiastic commirmenr, of course, bur without spec iaI acuitv.|lt is by studium that 1 am interested in so many photogtaphs,| whether I rcccive them as political testi-mony or enjoy them as good hiscorical sccncs: for it is cultutalły (this connotation is present in studium^that 1 participate in thc figutes, the faces, thc gesrures, the ser-tings, thc actioni _

^"THe setond element will break (or punctuate) thc studium. This timc it is not I who seek it out (as I invest thc field of che studium with my sovcreign consciousness), it is this element which rises from the sccnc, shoots out of it likc an arrow, and pierces mc.’^ Latin word cxists to deslgnate this wóund7^his ptick.This mark madę by a pointed instrument: the word suics me all thc better in that ic also refers to the notion of punctuacion, and be-causc the photographs I am speaking of ate in effect punc-

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tuated, sometimes even speckled with rhese sensitivc points; preciscly, thesc marks, rhese wounds arc so many points. This second element which will distutb thc studium I shall thcrefore cali punctum', for punctum is also: sting, speck, cur, linie hole—and also a cast of the dice. A photogtaph's punctum is that accident which pricks me (hut also bruises me, iś poignant to me).

Having thus distinguished rwo themes in Phorography (for in generał the photographs I likcd werc constructed in the manner of a dassical sonata), I could occupy my-self with one after the other.

Many photographs ate, alas, inert under my ga‘ze. But even among those which have some existence ir. my eyes, most provoke only a generał and, so to speak, polite interest: rhey havc no punctum in them: they plcasc or displeasc me wjthout pricking me: they arc invested with no morę than studium. The studium is that very wide field of unconcerr.cd de-sire, of yarious ir.terest. of inconseguential taste: I like / I don't Itkt. The studium is of the ordet of likittg, not of lovinv\ it mobilizes a haif desirc, a dcmi-volition; it is thc. same sort of vague, slippery, irresponsiblc interest one takes in the peoplc, the entertainments, the books, the clothes one ńnds ”all right."

To rccognize the studium is inevitably to cncounter the photographers intentions, to enter into harmony with

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