The Photographs I Do Not Publish
During a recent photo walk, the conversation returned to a familiar question.
What do we photograph?
And what do we choose not to show?
It sounds like a question for the street. Something to decide before pressing the shutter.
But sometimes it comes later.
In front of the screen.
I thought of a photograph I never published.
A person alone, sitting in a wheelchair against a quiet wall. Nothing dramatic. The light was there. The distance was right. The photograph worked.
That was precisely what made me hesitate.
Looking at it again, I could not separate the composition from the person inside it.
The lines, the emptiness, the balance of the frame all made the image stronger.
But they also made the person more exposed.
Was I showing a moment?
Or was I taking something that was not really mine?
Some photographs need to exist. Photographers stand where things happen and bring back what needs to be seen.
That is not what I am trying to do.
Most of the time, I am only trying to look.
Over time, I have become more careful with certain subjects. Not because such photographs can never exist, but because I am not always sure I am the one who should make them.
Not every photograph that can be made has to be shared.
I still have that photograph.
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The photographs are gathered here:
Selected Works
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I completely agree. Every photo – it’s not that it needs, but rather demands – some thought before it is shared. Because that image, to which the photographer undoubtedly has the right to access, has a story and a sensitivity behind it that must at least be taken into account. And I’m not just talking about photographers, but about anyone who takes a photo (nowadays, when it’s so common to post on social media). We have to be the first filter.
ReplyDeleteAnd then, there are images that you feel are like a little ‘treasure’, and which I’m reluctant to post, because at that moment they’ll cease to be ‘my treasure’ and will perhaps become something trivial to others who look at them without understanding what led me to take them in the first place.
Thank you very much for this thoughtful comment. What you say about context is essential to me. A photograph does not remain exactly the same once it leaves the moment in which it was made. It enters another space, with viewers who do not know what led to it, or what restraint may have surrounded it.
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