Photography, for Roland Barthes, is the absolute Partial, the ultimate Randomness, the Opportunity, the Encounter, the Real, in its thorough expression. An "ontological" desire had possessed him regarding Photography. Through these texts, he tries to learn what it is "in itself," what essential feature distinguishes it from the community of images. The research he began led him to wonder: "Why shouldn't there be, in some way, a new science by object? A Mathesis singularis (and no longer Mathesis universalis)? So I accepted to consider myself a mediator of all Photography: I would attempt to articulate, based on some personal initiatives, the fundamental feature, the universal without which there is no Photography." [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]