Photography and Trauma – How Do We Process Loss Through Images?
26 • 03 • 26Liliom Szabó
What happens when a photograph not only preserves a moment but also evokes pain? How can a visual memory support the process of grieving—whether we are facing personal loss or collective trauma? Photography does more than document; it creates a bridge between past and present, individual and community, personal and historical wounds.
Most people have a long-kept photo album tucked away in their attic or on a bookshelf. They may like to flip through it, but they may also avoid it, fearing a piece of their past. Photographs are not only significant in our personal lives; they also play a vital role in helping us process the tragic events of history in our collective memory.
In his 1980 book Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes reflects on his feelings for his deceased mother through the contemplation of archival photographs. His writing transcends a purely personal register and deepens into philosophical inquiry, examining the nature and essence of photography itself. Barthes examines how a photograph exerts a particular influence on its viewer and, through this force, can become central to the process of mourning. In this framework, he introduces the concepts of studium and punctum. The studium represents the cultural context that can be decoded and learned, allowing us to recognize the figures, events, and locations depicted in a photograph. It helps us situate these elements within a broader context. Historical images, portraits, and ethnographic photographs can all be analyzed through the studium. In such cases, the viewer typically remains disengaged, maintaining emotional distance from the image’s content.
The punctum, however, evokes a feeling that arrives suddenly and intensely, like a lightning strike—an experience Susan Sontag vividly illustrated this experience when recounting a photograph she encountered in a Santa Monica bookstore in 1945. “Nothing I have seen—in photographs or in real life—ever cut me as sharply, deeply, or instantaneously. Indeed, it seems plausible to me to divide my life into two parts, before I saw those photographs (I was twelve) and after [...].”[1] The punctum refers to that which pricks or wounds. In this experience, we do not necessarily perceive what the photographer originally intended to show; instead, a spontaneous and emotionally piercing detail of the image seizes the viewer. From this moment on, not only our personal archives but any photograph has the potential to awaken dormant traumas, confronting us unexpectedly. This punctum may manifest as a sign in the background, a tilt of the head that reminds us of someone, a jacket, a flower, or a particular place—any detail that resonates with the viewer on a profoundly personal level.
Imagine a seaside scene: people are picnicking along the shore, while some stand in the water, the outlines of rocks visible in the distance. At the center of the photograph, a father, seen from afar, places his arm around his ten- or twelve-year-old son’s waist as they smile at the camera. For some viewers, this photograph may appear to be an ordinary family snapshot. However, for others, even without recognizing the figures depicted, the image may evoke personal experiences, bringing forth characters and memories from their own lives. Viewed from this perspective, photographs are not merely objective documents but can also function as deeply personal mnemonic and emotional points—carriers of loss, absence, love, or pain, especially when encountered through the lens of one’s own bereavements.
Many photographers have borne witness to grief through the medium of photography. André Kertész's Polaroids, which depict the glass objects of his deceased wife, provide a poignant example. Without ever leaving his apartment, Kertész was able to enclose the memory of their love. In a different yet equally powerful manner, Jo Spence turned the camera toward herself. Her series, The Picture of Health?, was created in response to her cancer diagnosis and documents a form of inward loss. Through self-portraits, the work provides insight into the fragile yet hopeful process of recovery experienced by someone profoundly vulnerable. In these pieces, the artist is deeply connected to her subject matter, revealing personal trauma for public viewing. The audience, however, does not respond with pity or sentimental compassion; instead, it forms a kind of community of shared fate, engaging with the images through collective vulnerability and personal identification.
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Fotó: The Picture of Health, Jo Spence in collaboration with Rosy Martin, Maggie Murray and Terry Dennet. 1982. (© The Jo Spence Memorial Archive, Ryerson University; courtesy MACBA Collection)
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Fotó: Shomei Tomatsu: Hibakusha Senji Yamaguchi, Nagasaki, 1962 Gelatin-silver print, 40.4 x 27.9 cm Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur 2007-026-006 © Shomei Tomatsu/Courtesy PRISKA PASQUER, Köln
It is also worth addressing how collective losses are processed, since photographs play a vital role in shaping, clarifying, and articulating shared grief. Personal traumas often intersect with tragedies lived through on a social or historical scale, creating connections between individual experience and collective memory. In response to a particular event, traumatic emotions may emerge along various personal paths, yet they can converge within large segments of society. Through these shared nodes of experience, photographs contribute to the formation of collective consciousness and memory.
In her book Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory, Marianne Hirsch offers a personal perspective on the world-shattering catastrophe of the Holocaust. The book explores how subsequent generations remember the event through photographs. Hirsch refers to this phenomenon as postmemory, in which images and stories powerfully convey the traumatic experiences of others, such as parents or grandparents. These family photographs function as emotional and historical “frames.” Although they are often fragmented and incomplete, this inherent quality is what gives them significance. As a result, a broader audience can connect with these images, helping to keep memories alive and contributing to the community’s collective effort to process the loss. Images fundamentally make storytelling easier: they offer reference points, aid in creating meaning, and can be more easily integrated into personal narratives. Ultimately, they allow us to express feelings that might otherwise go unspoken.
Nan Goldin’s photographs created during the AIDS crisis of the 1990s likewise operate along the boundary between collective and personal trauma. In her slideshow series The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, Goldin documents her own life, in which her friends repeatedly appear, many of whom later developed AIDS. The visual traces of personal mourning thus coincide with a historically decisive era. The epidemic provoked fear, stigma, and aversion in many, while radically transforming the lives of entire communities. Goldin’s series helped shape a more human mode of remembrance: one in which loss is not reduced to statistics but given faces, names, and intimate histories. These photographs are deeply personal, revealing the vulnerabilities of both the deceased and the photographer, and inviting the viewer to confront feelings of pain and grief.
Shomei Tomatsu documented the transgenerational trauma that followed the Hiroshima atomic bombing. In his work Nagasaki, he photographs not the explosion itself but the survivors, their wounds, and damaged objects. His images are poetic and symbolic, focusing on the emotional atmosphere and psychological impact of trauma rather than the visible destruction.
Today, however, the relationship between photography and trauma is placed in an entirely new light. Many people have likely encountered—or personally experienced—the act of changing their profile picture to black on social media following the loss of a loved one. This act is usually accompanied by an outpouring of condolences and expressions of sympathy on one’s message board. We share photographs of our dead or images of past events retrieved from archives. I myself have come across a photograph of my grandfather, who died young, posted in my hometown’s Facebook group: he appears as an engineer working at the local factory. In the comments, people I didn’t know recalled shared memories of him or of that workplace.
The platform for processing collective trauma has thus expanded, yet photography continues to provide the foundation through which people can relive traumatic experiences. At the same time, through shared storytelling, photographs enable the communal experience of mourning and support the ongoing work of processing loss.
A recent 2023 study examines how the global COVID-19 shock was experienced through photographs. According to Allison Kwesell’s essay, “Photographs and COVID–19: The Therapeutic Quality of Shared Narratives and Collective Memory,” sharing photographs on social platforms enables collective experience and the processing of grief and trauma. Kwesell thus reinforces what may by now be evident to many: photography does not function solely as a documentary medium but also as a relational one, capable of creating connections. In this way, photographs can contribute to working through—and moving beyond—painful memories.
[1] Sontag, Susan. On Photography. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Translated by Richard Howard, Hill and Wang, 1981. (Original French: La chambre claire, 1980)
Goldin, Nan. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Aperture, 1986.
Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory. Harvard University Press, 1997.
Kertész, André. From My Window. Aperture, 1979.
Kwesell, Allison, et al. “Photographs and COVID–19: The Therapeutic Quality of Shared Narratives and Collective Memory.” Visual Communication, vol. 22, no. 1, 2023, pp. 53–74.
Spence, Jo. “The Picture of Health?” Family Snaps: The Meaning of Domestic Photography, edited by Jo Spence and Patricia Holland, Virago, 1986, pp. 184–193.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977.
Tomatsu, Shomei. Nagasaki 11:02. Shashindō Publications, 1966.
