ABSTRACT
This is a (characteristically French) play on words: for the word objectif has a double meaning with its English translation being equivalent to either ‘objective’ or ‘lens’. Bazin uses this analogy to suggest the automatic objectivity of lens-based representational systems. While the critical theory of photography can appear incredibly complex, seeming to comprise a confusing web of competing perspectives: psychoanalytic, phenomenological, feminist, semiotic, etc., the triangle of realism, formalism and expressionism provides a basis that is appropriate to lens-based media and offers an easily comprehensible structure that enables the student to address the others.
