Cartier
Bresson provided an insightful definition of photography when he wrote that
it was “... the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of
the significance of an event, as well as of a precise formal organisation
which brings that event to life. On rare occasions a single photograph will
suffice by itself to express all the essentials of a scene but usually it
is necessary to have several photographs complementing each other.”
This notion of what was called a ‘decisive moment’ and belief
in the benefit of using images in sequence made immediate sense to me when
I first understood them in the early 1960s, though I also realised that, to
be truly significant on a personal level, the moment of recognition had to
derive from something in my inner being. A memory or just an abstract feeling
whose relevance, being sub-conscious, I might be able to respond to instinctively
if I worked fast enough and could concentrate on the subject with sufficient
intensity as it played out its predicament within the viewfinder, but which
I often found difficult to identify in rational terms afterwards. So began
the long process of editing.
It was easy enough to discount pictures that weren’t so good - what
was more difficult was separating those that worked only in a formal, aesthetic
sense from others that revealed something of the nature of their subject,
and to further distinguish mere social significance from a more vital personal
relevance. Despite the dangers of self indulgence and the confessional on
the one hand and stylistic obscurity on the other, I evolved a way of exploring
this more private aspect of my work through the juxtaposition of pictures
that had no logical relation other than to imply a particular emotional import
in a variety of different sequences that I now call 'narratives'.
Taking photographs of people unawares is intrusive, particularly if they are to be published and used to imply a ‘point of view’ over which the subject has no control. Used with respect, though, pictures in which people seem to be both spontaneous and authentic can reveal matters of real significance to an understanding of the human condition. It may be, however, that a tension between the moral risk and this kind of moral purpose can give photography some kind of edge.
(To navigate, choose from one of the options above. For each of the photographic sequences step back and forward using the pointing hands. To mimic the books the pictures are drawn from they will each step forwards or backwards one page. Where additional captioning exists the 'book' button should be clicked to view. For some pages a larger screen size is required to show the pictures together as intended)
