I came across this video originally produced in the early 1970's.
Henri Cartier-Bresson talks about the need to forget oneself when photographing.
He says a photograph can be like a warm kiss.
He says shooting a picture is being present ... like saying, "Yes, yes, yes!"
Photography is an affirmation.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Photographer as Empathetic Witness
Why People Photograph
, by Robert Adams. Aperture Foundation. 1994
To be a witness requires that we be present, and to be present requires that we be in a relationship. The collection of essays by Robert Adams in this 186 page booktestifies to the role curiosity and compassionate interest play in the enterprise of photographic artists.
What Adams calls affection for the subject or sympathy of vision is an essential ingredient for an artistic endeavor. Photography, by its very nature, takes a moment in time and expresses a truth. In Adams' words, it takes the specific and makes it universal. As photographic artists, we strive for expressions that are convincing in their universality.
"At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are" [p. 179]. There is a sense of reverence, and a discovery of radical amazement (in the words of A.J. Heschel) as we stand before our subject.
We stand as a witness with the privileged realization that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves, and that we are so close to it we can capture a moment of it right now.
, by Robert Adams. Aperture Foundation. 1994To be a witness requires that we be present, and to be present requires that we be in a relationship. The collection of essays by Robert Adams in this 186 page book
testifies to the role curiosity and compassionate interest play in the enterprise of photographic artists. What Adams calls affection for the subject or sympathy of vision is an essential ingredient for an artistic endeavor. Photography, by its very nature, takes a moment in time and expresses a truth. In Adams' words, it takes the specific and makes it universal. As photographic artists, we strive for expressions that are convincing in their universality.
"At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are" [p. 179]. There is a sense of reverence, and a discovery of radical amazement (in the words of A.J. Heschel) as we stand before our subject.
We stand as a witness with the privileged realization that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves, and that we are so close to it we can capture a moment of it right now.
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