There are many ways to engage with and appreciate a photo: composition, framing, lighting, colour, sharpness, geometry, texture, negative space, aesthetics, the list goes on… Most of these arise from technical or visual language critiques of how a photograph works. But what of the philosophical ways?

Take a look at the photo below. Can you easily describe the setting of this photo? Would you agree that it contains many familiar elements? A modern city? Old and modern buildings? An automated pedestrian crossing? Casually dressed people in the street? A tram passing in the background?

The shared understanding of these elements is what the French philosopher Roland Barthes coined the studium of a photograph: the general, culturally understood historical, political, and social elements a photograph presents, the shared objective understanding of it.

The image is one of a series of photos I took trying to capture, in long exposure, a Sydney tram painted predominantly in a blue advert. My goal was to capture both the movement of the tram, as well as that of several pedestrians moving through the foreground. I captured a yellow tram, then this purple tram, then a green one, then the blue one without moving pedestrians, then finally, the blue one with people moving through the foreground as I wanted.

When I loaded the photos from the day into my photo editor, there was a surprise for me: in every photo in the series stood the lone motionless figure in the mid-ground. Shooting through my optical viewfinder, I hadn’t even noticed him in my concentration to capture the specific tram and the pedestrian movement. My inital reaction was one of delight at this serendipitous, unintended element of the composition, which I feel provides an interesting visual counterpoint to all the movement.

Take a closer look at the image; what else do you notice? Is there any detail that grabs your attention? Does it provoke in you an emotional response? If so, is it difficult to articulate?

When I looked more closely at the lone figure, at his overall demeanour, the expression on his face, and his absolute stillness, I suddenly felt sad. While he does not seem physically lost or distracted (as he would if he were on a phone), he appears to me to be completely immersed in some inner melancholy state, while city life goes on around him.

My visceral, emotional response is what Roland Barthes coined the punctum (a Latin word for puncture or wound) of a photo, an unintended compelling detail that punctures the studium and “pricks” or “wounds” the viewer.

The thing about the punctum is that it’s an intensely personal and subjective emotional sting. Not everyone who views this photograph would experience it. For some viewers, there may be another detail in the photo that constitutes the punctum or there may be none. It’s phenomenological because it is the viewer’s lived experience of the photograph.

Take a look at your own photos to see if they contain a punctum or puncta.