Lecture

 

This photograph, simply entitled Lecture, was taken in 1979 by a twenty-four-year-old Hervé Guibert. Despite its premise, as simple as its title, I think it may just be my favourite photograph —ever—.

 

Here, I think, the punctum (to borrow Barthes's word) is the way light and shadow cut the upright book in two, right across its middle. Perhaps the window's handle, all alone in the blacks of the picture. Or maybe the thin sliver of light pooling along the sill. (I think it's that one.) I don't really care about the trees in the background, or about the book itself. It's the dark that draws me; so comforting.

 

If a genie came and asked me for my three wishes, I'd say: to turn into a proper woman, to speak all the languages I want, and to live in this picture. Or the room where it was taken, but only if that lighting never changes and it remains black and white.

 

Look closely: isn't the way the pages curve and the light caresses them so erotic?