MP Guy
06-10-2005, 20:06
You see yourself as Cartier-Bresson--full of curiosity, anticipative of
the decisive moment. You love Europe after the war and its denizens; the
play of light against a wall in Naples at 4 P.M., the look on a woman's
face, tired, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her bare arm;
the allure of Rumanian gypsies in a folk dance who notice you and line up in
what might be an affected pose, but in your mind's eye, you see the history
and culture of a race of people and here you are, able to document them for
all time, express the eternal moment that they are, this thing that is only
apparently fleeting, and which only you are given the right to view--and
express to the world, on this day and in this place.
You are Andre Kertesz, in love with Paris (whoever wasn't?!) and so the
black and white shapes and figures become your poetry, what your lips are
unable to utter but what exists before you and must be witnessed as
something which grips your heart.
The camera is a tool for seeing, an extension of your eye. And because
it is small, unobtrusive, it becomes so: not a machine that you place
against your face as a mechanical interpolator of the event in front of you,
but a minor thing, a device which says, this and only this is what I wish to
embrace in this moment--these people, this light, this city, this world that
reflects eternity. And so... your preoccupation is not that of what the
machine will do for you, what it is capable of imposing on the life around
you itself, but how it will efface itself and merely complete its task:
that of registering life in front of you as you see it, through the eyes of
your mind and more importantly, your heart; how it will assist you in making
into something real, for others to see, this thing that is so abundant with
meaning to you now.
This is what a rangefinder can assist one in accomplishing. As you
look, you do not see in front of you a machine that imposes its design
(however beautiful that may be) first on your own eyes, barricading them
from the world, and then against the eyes of others, engendering suspicion,
but an instrument that connects you with time and space, your fellow humans,
in the towns, cities, countries where they live--not omitting the stars over
their heads or the sun as it slowly fingers its way down the cement walls of
their abode.
While an SLR viewfinder can preoccupy you with its own system of
operation like a wall of defense as it casts doubt into the mind of your
subjects as to who you are and what your intention is, the rangefinder, with
its unimposing demeanor, can help them partake in the joy you register as
you view them, since it obscures your own features less. You are one with
the subject, and because of this, he or she will reveal to you more of what
he or she is, since you will not be viewed as an alien, replete with
mechanical device, but as a fellow human who wishes to share in whatever
joy, sadness, disbelief or whole-hearted credence, that is at hand.
The photographer's task is not that of taking from life what it offers,
but that of participating in life, becoming one with it, as he or she
records it. Photography is not a question of recording events in and of
themselves, but of recording life in a way that reflects one's love of it--a
love that includes all of its participants: men, women, children, homes,
towns, cities, countrysides... the world and beyond. The camera, therefore,
must serve this, and not the other way around.
the decisive moment. You love Europe after the war and its denizens; the
play of light against a wall in Naples at 4 P.M., the look on a woman's
face, tired, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her bare arm;
the allure of Rumanian gypsies in a folk dance who notice you and line up in
what might be an affected pose, but in your mind's eye, you see the history
and culture of a race of people and here you are, able to document them for
all time, express the eternal moment that they are, this thing that is only
apparently fleeting, and which only you are given the right to view--and
express to the world, on this day and in this place.
You are Andre Kertesz, in love with Paris (whoever wasn't?!) and so the
black and white shapes and figures become your poetry, what your lips are
unable to utter but what exists before you and must be witnessed as
something which grips your heart.
The camera is a tool for seeing, an extension of your eye. And because
it is small, unobtrusive, it becomes so: not a machine that you place
against your face as a mechanical interpolator of the event in front of you,
but a minor thing, a device which says, this and only this is what I wish to
embrace in this moment--these people, this light, this city, this world that
reflects eternity. And so... your preoccupation is not that of what the
machine will do for you, what it is capable of imposing on the life around
you itself, but how it will efface itself and merely complete its task:
that of registering life in front of you as you see it, through the eyes of
your mind and more importantly, your heart; how it will assist you in making
into something real, for others to see, this thing that is so abundant with
meaning to you now.
This is what a rangefinder can assist one in accomplishing. As you
look, you do not see in front of you a machine that imposes its design
(however beautiful that may be) first on your own eyes, barricading them
from the world, and then against the eyes of others, engendering suspicion,
but an instrument that connects you with time and space, your fellow humans,
in the towns, cities, countries where they live--not omitting the stars over
their heads or the sun as it slowly fingers its way down the cement walls of
their abode.
While an SLR viewfinder can preoccupy you with its own system of
operation like a wall of defense as it casts doubt into the mind of your
subjects as to who you are and what your intention is, the rangefinder, with
its unimposing demeanor, can help them partake in the joy you register as
you view them, since it obscures your own features less. You are one with
the subject, and because of this, he or she will reveal to you more of what
he or she is, since you will not be viewed as an alien, replete with
mechanical device, but as a fellow human who wishes to share in whatever
joy, sadness, disbelief or whole-hearted credence, that is at hand.
The photographer's task is not that of taking from life what it offers,
but that of participating in life, becoming one with it, as he or she
records it. Photography is not a question of recording events in and of
themselves, but of recording life in a way that reflects one's love of it--a
love that includes all of its participants: men, women, children, homes,
towns, cities, countrysides... the world and beyond. The camera, therefore,
must serve this, and not the other way around.