People who make photographs
in the larger formats are
different from you and I.
They wait. For all our fair
and proper sensitivity to
the decisive moment, and
the lovely alacrity of our
implements, they are there
before us, hunters, some-
times in hunters' blinds.
But they are there; and as
they squeeze the release of
their shutter, a quality of
summation joins the force
of vitality in the picture
of our dreams. Look. What
would we take away?
Now our infamous hottie in the white T
wears stripes for this portrait with his
sensuous Rollei, slow to the eye but quick
to the hand, one of the great instruments
ever confided to normal enthusiasts. He did
not make the photograph above, or this one;
they are by his friend, François. But I will
tell you, month in and month out since that
posting was published, the most constantly
visited entry at this page is about a slow
photographer because he mentioned him.
And when you see his own pictures, whatever the device he uses, they are as if he had always been there, to attest to the image's stability, or to discern a nuance which only patience will discover. Discovery is work, I'm reminded.
He said to me once, the slow machine is a philos-ophy, just as my fast one is. He remarks at his blog, sunlight takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth. You can see him, waiting for it every second.
i, ii François Canard
iii Valéry Lorenzo
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