羅蘭巴特在1970年代末寫《明室》（La Chambre Claire）一書，當時攝影尚未成為人文領域學術研究的一項客體，法國大學對攝影的理論性研究方興未艾。巴特探討攝影的興趣，伴隨了他二、三十年的寫作生涯。他作為社會符號學家、文本理論家、作家、甚至晚年以接近哲學家的關注透過攝影思考生命問題，對於提昇攝影作為學術研究客體有不容忽略的鼓舞作用。在此背景之下，思及攝影論述之發展，令人好奇的是，當巴特在寫《明室》前，是否讀過班雅明有關攝影的重要文章？事實上，班雅明〈攝影小史〉的法文譯文節錄，曾刊於1977年的《新觀察者》（Le Nouvel Observateur）畫報攝影專刊內，正是巴特寫《明室》時相當重要的參考源頭，隨文走的數幅影作更為巴特提供了影像部份的思辨元素，同被納入其論證發展中，尤其是探索「刺點」定義的章節。巴特雖然在書中並未直接引用〈攝影小史〉的內文，也不曾提到班雅明其人其文，可是從幾個大的章節主旨，也從字裡行間，關鍵字鑰，皆可揣想兩者之間低抑或激烈的迴響，迂迴之對話有跡可尋，構成了隱性的互文。本論文以初探的嘗試，先了解《新觀察者》版本之原貌，再對《明室》與〈攝影小史〉進行文本對照閱讀，檢視巴特如何批評1920、30年代以來奠定的「現代攝影」理論與創作，如何回應班雅明所曾提出的幾個關鍵字鑰。

While Roland Barthes wrote Camera Lucida in the end of 1970s, photography was not yet considered an object of serious human sciences research in French universities. Throughout his career as writer and social-semiology researcher, Barthes took a deep interest in photography, which finally led to him using it to ponder life's philosophical meaning. Certainly he contributed significantly to the elevation of photography to something deserving of scientific research. In this context, one may reasonably wonder if Barthes, while writing his Camera Lucida, had already read Walter Benjamin's essay, “Little History of Photography.” Indeed, Barthes' bibliography lists a special issue of magazine Le Nouvel Observateur that did contain an incomplete version of Benjamin's text. Barthes admitted that in this magazine he found many photographs that served to bolster the argument of his book. Nevertheless, he had not quoted or made any evident reference to Benjamin. But we can still glimpse between the lines many intertextual responses, perhaps in a manner not so easy to classify. Consequently, this article will begin by examining the version of Benjamin's essay in Le Nouvel Observateur in order to find what Barthes might have read in it, and then go on to make a comparison between these two texts, focusing on certain keywords that may be in dialogue from one text to the other.