Punctum

• a point of visual interest to which your eye keeps being drawn.
• a point which causes an emotive reaction within the viewer.
• a point that causes conjecture as to why it makes you feel the way you do about the image.

These three bullets from the course notes are useful for remembering how punctum works. I would also say that punctum is subjective and that although studium is always embedded in an image (to enable the viewer to decode it) punctum isn't always present for an individual viewer.

I looked at some (non-OCA) student's examples of punctum and studium on the web. In my opinion there were some clearly incorrect examples being used. A photograph of an upturned car, placed in the centre of the frame, is clearly the subject of the image - and therefore part of the image's studium. If, for instance, the photographer had photographed a woman standing against a wall covered in pasted news headlines then, the woman is the subject, and the mass of newspaper headlines (for the photographer) are an interesting backdrop - all part of the studium. If, in one of those newspaper pictures, the upturned car could clearly be seen, then that could be a point of punctum for those that perceived it. That to me, is what punctum is.

But when I start to think more deeply about the definitions of punctum and studium, I see issues with regard to the points above. What if those points were specifically created by the maker? Can they still be punctum? Surely sometimes those points are specifically placed into an image to be decoded as part of the studium. So how can they be punctum? Is it just because the viewer sees them that way and doesn't perceive the intended denoted or connotative message?

When I think of the constructed work of Cindy Sherman for example. When every element has been planned; when every prop has been placed into the image; how can a viewer see any punctum? I took some time thinking about these concepts and eventually saw that a point in an image can have entirely different connotations than those intended by the maker. Perhaps punctum could be perceived in this way - a point could be both studium (placed there with connotations/denotations for the maker) and punctum for the viewer as it triggers different thought processes, memories, etc. I'm straying into the slippery path of the subject of the de-centered image here.

I think the points above work well when analysing documentary or 'straight' images. That's how Barthes analysed the image of his mother at the winter gardens. And indeed, I've been fascinated by mundane or obscure details taking place in the background of images myself, many times. But when I start to look at conceptual or constructed work with punctum and stadium in mind then I find that these definitions become slippery and less easy to grasp.