Pear as Punctum

I know I posted this picture from last fall only a few days ago, but something about it jogged my memory, reminding me of . . . what was it? Oh, that's right: yet another "pear as punctum" picture, taken six years ago! What's the odds?

Apple Harvest (with pear as punctum)
October 22, 2016

Pear as Punctum
July 6, 2011

To review: Punctum is French critic Roland Barthes' intriguing term for that touching or disconcerting detail which pierces through the still life, the object, or the studium. Rather than the usual sequence of subject first, object second, for Barthes, the "second element which will disturb the studium I shall therefore call punctum; for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole – and also a cast of the dice. A photograph’s punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)" (Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, 27). Barthes' "book develops the twin concepts of studium and punctum: studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it."

All Punctum Posts
"Pilobolus, Punctum, Yellow Squash"
"The Lughnasa Moon"
"The Handwriting on the Wall"
"This Little World, This England"
"Pear as Punctum"