"The aesthetic qualities of photography are to be sought in its power to lay bare the realities." (André Bazin)

The idea of the camera as an accessory to objective truth is based on the inclusion of the accidental as a guarantee of authentic representation. (5) For Barthes, the “punctum” is the “accident which pricks me” which “I add to the photograph and what is nonetheless already there” (6). It attracts the interest precisely because it is not framed as the main focus of attention, and invites the apprehension of aleatory details with which to open up new lines of inquiry. A good photographer may well have a knack for seizing “puncta”, consciously or not, but the difficulty arises with the role of the spectator in forming aesthetic judgements about which elements can be defined as relevant.
Faith in the infallibility of the instrument capturing the information neglects the complications inherent in considering any number of possible responses by a variety of observers, each with their own uniquely conditioned faculty of perception. Static images are preserved outside of time and composed of implicit potentialities which demand interpretation. Faced with indeterminacy and ambiguity of meaning, the viewer is quickly drawn into a process where assumption runs riot, tainting the self-contained visual data with empirical baggage. Sadly, scouring for clues by manipulating space-time and freeing the observer’s originally fixed vector position a la ‘Blade Runner’ is not yet an option. (7) The spectator becomes the author, embarking on a creative trawl through the narrative of the picture.

Blue 439’s first response to the events he perceives in a sequence of pictures is to conclude that he has saved someone’s life by unintentional intervention. His repetition of the word “fantastic” when describing the photos to his editor (Ron) is a truer statement than he realises. The turning point arrives - after a randy bout in the studio with Jane Birkin and friend - where he sees what he believes to be a body in one of the images. He revisits Maryon Park at night, ironically without his camera, and does indeed find the corpse still lying there. With his suspicions of murder confirmed, and his frenetic research seemingly justified, he finds Ron stoned at a party and attempts to communicate the story.
- “I want you to see the corpse. We’ve got to get a shot of it!”
- “I’m not a photographer”
- “I am”
There is a pause with a tacit understanding between the two men. Blue 439 would rather Ron accompany him and verify the truth with his own eyes than place his trust in the photographic medium.
- “What did you see in that park?”
- “Nothing.”
He is dragged by his collar into another room, and we have to assume that the promise of marijuana and sex are inevitably always more interesting than murder.

“…your favourite hero is he who gazes (photographer or reporter). This is dangerous, because gazing at something far longer than you were asked to… upsets the established order in whatever form, since the extent or the very duration of the gaze is normally controlled by society.” (Roland Barthes)

During the scene where Blue 439 reaches a critical understanding of the events on film, we see the series of incriminating stills accompanied by the sinister sound of the wind rushing through the trees at Maryon Park. All motion stops and the static images play before us, somehow validated by the superimposition of the ambient noise. (8)