Barthes and Bad Teeth

In his famous study "Camera Lucida", Roland Barthes draws the distinction between studium (the general interest in an image) and punctum (the small detail, which distorts the studium, but at the same time lifts the photograph above average) He desribes a picture by Wiliam Klein, where he finds the punctum in the bad teeth of the boy in the middle.

Walking down the streets of Tel Aviv, I came across a group of people sitting on the street, with a small boy amongst them: especially the boy was eager to get photographed, and so i did.




What looks like a candid child image on first sight, gets quite disturbing, after a closer look: the boy transforms into a kind of hyperactive vampire breed (no pun intended), once you discover the bad teeth.