Barthes and Camera Lucida

For all of Barthes' musings on photography, I was a bit surprised that the idea of the photographic postmodern tableaux was largely ignored. Especially since this book was published in 1980, a time when postmodern work would have been more prevalent, I was a bit surprised that Barthes seemed to assert that images which were too consciously photographic lacked a punctum by default. They could not prick because they were trying to prick. It feels to me, though, as if Barthes is dismissing an entire genre of photographic practice. How would Barthes approach a photograph by Cindy Sherman, which is entirely posed and simulacral? Can Sherman not prick us because of this? What does it mean for the photographic noeme to correspond to a simulation? "This has been," yes, but "this" refers both to the fact of Sherman herself posing and the cinematic reference to which Sherman's work owes itself, the simulation of the event itself. Can we not be pricked by a simulation?

I was also a bit confused by Barthes' assertion that the punctum necessarily inheres in the photograph itself. On page 55, he argues that the punctum is an addition brought to the photograph by the Spectator, yes, but that is also is "nonetheless already there." Were that to be the case, then it would seem to follow that the photographic punctum should be the same for each Spectator, since what is "already there" cannot be altered or diminished. And yet Barthes himself forecloses this possibility in his refusal to print the Winter Garden photograph. He knows that this image will not prick any of us in the way that it does him - so then how does the punctum inhere in this photograph? I would argue that the punctum is not "already there" in the image, but the necessary preconditions for the punctum are. I believe that any image has the ability to prick - this is an inherent component of Photography - but only when the unique Spectator can "add" something is the punctum activated.