Chapter 3. The Vertigo of Time Defeated85 Ways of looking at Photographs
Introduction And yet, because it was a photograph I could not deny that I had been there [even if I did not know where]. This distortion between certainty and oblivion gave me a kind of vertigo, something of a ―detective‖ anguish [the theme of Blow-Up was not far off]. [Barthes 2000:85]
Our past lives on in our memories, and photographs are embodiments of these memories. Rather than photographs being closely associated with death, as many writers have suggested, I see them as evoking but also contradicting autobiographical memory. Photographs are a living testament of our complex and elusive past.
Me Seven Sisters Wallpaper 1966. Photographic Print. 20cm x 30cm. 2004.
85
From Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes. p94
99