With Barthes concepts of studium and punctum in mind, I immediatley associated my confusion of the figure to the idea of studium. I was intrigued by the curves and drawn in by the overlaps in the structure of the pepper. Since the pepper takes up the entire frame, my eyes effortlessly followed the curves up and around the left, then up and around the right, to a peak that resembles one in a heart. This is what I like about this picture. I like the way the light reflects on the pepper's surface, especially in a black and white exposure, revealing distinctive depths and angles of the vegetable. The pepper seems light-medium gray and the shadows are even more distinctive against the pitch black background. All of these components are compelling enough to draw me in further. To entertain my interests and appeal to my likes.
What was piercing for me in this photo was the drastic change of color and texture on the bottom right corner of the pepper that arches similarly to that of a lower back into two separate parts of the pepper that resembles the backside of a naked woman. This element of the photo that is punctum, what was already there and that I added, is the resemblance to the naked woman. What is also striking to me in respect to the pepper resembling a woman's body, is that the right "cheek" is bruised and adds an element of flaw to the beautiful, portrait-like veggie. This is what I love about the photo. Barthes' explanation of a unary photo, a photo consisting of one thing or one element, seemed at first to apply to this photo-- until I became aware of the second element of the photo that "is reminiscent of the female nudes that Weston was making during the 1930's" (283).
This photo reveals depths and shadows of a pepper, however the overall essance of the photo has it's own depth and shadows that, for me, make up the picture's stadium and punctum--each in their own ways. A photo can have both of these elements for someone, or neither. Or, even one or the other. But for me, Pepper #30 contains both of these elements very clearly. They were easy to identify in relation to Barthes explanation of them especially regarding the way he explain eroticism in a photo. His idea that mystery to the sensuality of a photo is more pleasurable than a pornographic photo is more relatable when applying the theory to this photo. This photo is only risqué because of the disturbance to bluntly show eroticism.
Barthes, Roland. (1980). Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York: Hill and Wang.
Hacking, Juliet. (2012). Photography: The Whole Story. New York: Prestel Publishing.