Décembre 2007,Osaka-jô, Osaka, Province du Kansai, Japon
Another missed shot ? So what ?
The rain comes pouring down since two days, and I can't wait for a bright interval... Luckily, I followed my intuition last friday and took advantage of the sun to spend time trhough the abandonned buildings of a former wood crafting factory nearby. I used to play there when I was a teenager. A cousin suggested we could convert this ruins field into a crazy kart trail. At the time, I thought it was a good idea. I'm not so sure today. I spent long minutes looking for some angles to shoot. I found a rusted and dusty kid bike among the junkyard behind buildings and I started shooting a serie I'm going to intitle "disparition". In French, La disparition is not only a style exercice performed by Mister Perec (a complete novel written without words using the "e" letter). "Disparition" is implying collapsment, violence, deprivement. Somehow, Disparition is the word we're thinking of when something irrational and ununderstandable happened. La disparition is always covered with a mask of mystery and sudden.
I started thinking of this as I was heading home. That's how came the idea to buy a couple of rolls and hand over the opportunity. In that serie (I unfortunately don't have the material to develop the rolls here, so I won't be able to put online some of the results before a few days), I tried to suggest the absence created by an accident. Only objects or element of the scenery are to support the violence message. The rest is imagination. As I read it recently, once the photographer or the artist understood that reality and life are not transmitable things, but always result from a construction (plastic composition and construction of the mind), they're on the good path to revolve and improve their creation. So I shot. I shot scenes of disparition, I shot something that couldn't be seen, I shot the frame where other minds could then see something. Hope it'll be good.
Some people say I'm thinking too much. it might be true, but it's the only way I could find to make something of my life. I don't want to forget real life. i'm not a refugee of the world lost in the imagination camp. But for instance, as I'm writing now, I still don't know if the result of thoses long hours of shooting will be satisfying. Maybe not. Maybe yes. anyway, I have to wait. What am I to feel if the whole serie is a failure ? Will I cry ? No. Because thinking of this serie and of what it was to me already gave a sense to this excursion.
That must be why I'm not so found of digital photography : numerical pictures are for people only living the present. They need instantaneous answers, reaction. It's killing time. In life, very often (all the time actually), answers are never to come immediately. They leave us behind, with nothing but some good reason to hope for a happy ending. In life, nothing's for sure and the mind changes its way to see an event. In life, we're always to improvise without knowing in advance what will be the result. Classical photography is like this. Rolls, in the dark secret of a box we're trying to manipulate in a skillful way : very limited control actually. Answers, fragments often, come long after. Clasical photography is an art of patience, a school of life. It forces us to cope with the powerlessness we're suffering most of the time about important questions. Shooting a picture is taking a risk : no way back. No possibility to erase and start again, "for fun". It's no videogame where a missed opportunity is forgotten immediately because another is upcoming. Life is not pretending. I don't want no fake either.
That's why I spend so much time thinking. While digital could lead me to enjoy only present things, I like to take advantage of the delays to think over my decisions, the moves I did. It's no big deal, but I do think that's how someone can learn the price of life, the importance of not wasting.
I almost came to digital photography some weeks ago. I was lurking at a brand new Nikon, but I'm not wanting anymore of this. I'm not regarding the picture results. Photography is a way to build myself and find answers to my life. Of course, in the end, the results are the same. But what matters in life is ethic, skills, how we proceed to go from A to B. An African proverb says "give a fish to a man, he'll eat a day. Teach him how to fish, he'll eat all his life". I'm not going to sacrifice the precious moments of my life to childish whim and will for immediate answers : better wait and learn slowly. Sorry folks, keep the elevator, I'll take the stairs.
PS : Thanks Flo, for the German papist touch you gave to thoses assertions.
I started thinking of this as I was heading home. That's how came the idea to buy a couple of rolls and hand over the opportunity. In that serie (I unfortunately don't have the material to develop the rolls here, so I won't be able to put online some of the results before a few days), I tried to suggest the absence created by an accident. Only objects or element of the scenery are to support the violence message. The rest is imagination. As I read it recently, once the photographer or the artist understood that reality and life are not transmitable things, but always result from a construction (plastic composition and construction of the mind), they're on the good path to revolve and improve their creation. So I shot. I shot scenes of disparition, I shot something that couldn't be seen, I shot the frame where other minds could then see something. Hope it'll be good.
Some people say I'm thinking too much. it might be true, but it's the only way I could find to make something of my life. I don't want to forget real life. i'm not a refugee of the world lost in the imagination camp. But for instance, as I'm writing now, I still don't know if the result of thoses long hours of shooting will be satisfying. Maybe not. Maybe yes. anyway, I have to wait. What am I to feel if the whole serie is a failure ? Will I cry ? No. Because thinking of this serie and of what it was to me already gave a sense to this excursion.
That must be why I'm not so found of digital photography : numerical pictures are for people only living the present. They need instantaneous answers, reaction. It's killing time. In life, very often (all the time actually), answers are never to come immediately. They leave us behind, with nothing but some good reason to hope for a happy ending. In life, nothing's for sure and the mind changes its way to see an event. In life, we're always to improvise without knowing in advance what will be the result. Classical photography is like this. Rolls, in the dark secret of a box we're trying to manipulate in a skillful way : very limited control actually. Answers, fragments often, come long after. Clasical photography is an art of patience, a school of life. It forces us to cope with the powerlessness we're suffering most of the time about important questions. Shooting a picture is taking a risk : no way back. No possibility to erase and start again, "for fun". It's no videogame where a missed opportunity is forgotten immediately because another is upcoming. Life is not pretending. I don't want no fake either.
That's why I spend so much time thinking. While digital could lead me to enjoy only present things, I like to take advantage of the delays to think over my decisions, the moves I did. It's no big deal, but I do think that's how someone can learn the price of life, the importance of not wasting.
I almost came to digital photography some weeks ago. I was lurking at a brand new Nikon, but I'm not wanting anymore of this. I'm not regarding the picture results. Photography is a way to build myself and find answers to my life. Of course, in the end, the results are the same. But what matters in life is ethic, skills, how we proceed to go from A to B. An African proverb says "give a fish to a man, he'll eat a day. Teach him how to fish, he'll eat all his life". I'm not going to sacrifice the precious moments of my life to childish whim and will for immediate answers : better wait and learn slowly. Sorry folks, keep the elevator, I'll take the stairs.
PS : Thanks Flo, for the German papist touch you gave to thoses assertions.
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