Time, Loss, and the Death of the (M)other in Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida and Sally Mann’s Deep South

Abstract

This paper inquires into the ethical potential of photography. To what extent and how can photographs evoke an affective response in viewers? It is this affective response, I argue, which, as the foundation of empathy, forms the basis for photography’s ethical potential. I show that one’s particular emotional response to a photograph is the trace of a deeper, universal experience that is constitutive of being human: the separation from the (m)other at birth. Photographs are particularly powerful at evoking an affective response that unconsciously recalls this primal experience because of certain qualities inherent to the photographic medium. This paper investigates these universal qualities of photography through an examination of Sally Mann’s photographic series Deep South . Mann’s series is a particularly useful object of study because of its prompting of questions concerning time, materiality of land, and the materiality of photographs themselves. Inscribed in the land and in photographs, as well as in the human body, are traces of the past. Photographs bring this past to the present by evoking an affective response that recalls the original separation from the (m)other, thereby reminding us of our constant striving—and failure—to reconnect with our mother and, through that, with others in our present. It is this shared experience of the failure to share experience that can ultimately connect us with each other and form the basis for empathy. In viewing photographs, we, together, are unconsciously reminded of our shared striving to return to the womb and reclaim shared experienced with an/other.

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