Thread by @dean_frey

Remembering Roland Barthes on his birthday 🎂
📷 Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1963
"Among the brand-name French theorists of the mid-20th century, Roland Barthes was the fun one. (Foucault was the tough one, Derrida was the dreamy one, Lacan was the mysterious one...)"
- Sam Anderson

Roland Barthes by Jean-François Bauret, 1980
A portrait from the philosopher's final year.

Another portrait by Jean-François Bauret of Barthes, from 1980. This must have been one of the last photographs of Barthes, since he died on March 26th of that year.
@MAPatrimoine

Another photo session from Barthes's last month. Photographed by Michel Delaborde at his home on rue Servandoni, February 5, 1980.

Twenty days later, Roland Barthes was knocked down by a laundry van while walking home from a lunch with François Mitterand. He died a month later.

More shots by Michel Delaborde of Roland Barthes, taken at his home in the last month of his life, February 1980.

Roland Barthes by Michel Delaborde, 1980.
Look how he seems to fade away in the contact sheet (planche contact in French).

Learning with Roland Barthes at the Collége de France, complete with cigarettes.
📷 Daniel Boudinet, 1975

For Roland Barthes's birthday, this Daniel Boudinet photograph of the philosopher with his Collége de France students, 1975
@MAPatrimoine

Roland Barthes by Ferdinando Scianna, 1977
"For Death must be somewhere in a society; if it is no longer (or less intensely) in religion, it must be elsewhere; perhaps in this image which produces Death while trying to preserve life."
- Camera Lucida

Roland Barthes in his apartment on Place Saint-Sulpice.
📷 Sophie Bassouls, 1978

"The photographic image... is a message without a code."
- Roland Barthes

📷 Robert Capa, Barcelona, 1939

"Cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing."
- Roland Barthes

Ansel Adams' Arca-Swiss 4x5 View Camera

"Every photograph is a certificate of presence."
- Roland Barthes

📷 Elliott Erwitt, Budapest, 1964

"…the book creates meaning, the meaning creates life."
- Roland Barthes

📷 Mark Twain by Alvin Langdon Coburn, 1908

"Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering."
- Roland Barthes

📷 Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles, 1980-83