Roland Barthes Camera Lucida

Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist. He looked at many schools of theory including semiotics, social theory and Marxism

the book Camera Lucida reflections on photography looks at interest in photography and still images, as opposed to the "moving images of cinema.
he talks about how a photograph mechanically records a moment in time which can never be repeated.

He looks at how the photograph can be the object of three practices or emotions
The operator as the Photographer
The spectator as Ourselves and anyone who chooses to look through the photographs
The person or object that is photographed is the Target

Barthes talks about observation both being the observer and the observed
He talks about how he can be observed without knowing it, but how more often he had been photographed, and how he knows he has been photographed. Barthes talks bout how once he knows he is being photographed he starts to pose, thus creating an image for the camera. He talks about how when he poses, he knows that he is posing, and wants you to know that he is posing.

Barths also talks about how a photograph shows  lot more about a person, period of time and place than a painted portrait does. as you see more photographs you start to understand a little bit about the subject you are looking at.