I still want to point out that this praise of slowness was written when that morning I understood that I was eating my toast while pacing my apartment in the living room and in the kitchen with the fervor of a marathon runner. It is for this reason that this column exists. Because I’m running everywhere and I need time for myself, need to settle down somewhere. I realize that only in words is it possible to give my body a certain respite.
Five years ago I started to take an interest in photography. Someone recommended the book by essayist, novelist and philosopher Susan Sontag to me. We Photography (On the photo. Complete Works ISusan Sontag, translated from English [États-Unis] by Philippe Blanchard, Christian Bourgois editor, 2008). What was my surprise to find myself devouring this book bringing together his essays on the subject in just a few afternoons in the park. It was especially when I came across this thought that I understood that I had to pursue my dream of taking pictures. “To take a picture is to associate with the mortal, vulnerable, unstable condition of another being (or something else). It is precisely by cutting out this moment and fixing it that all the photographs testify to the work of incessant dissolution of time. What followed was a desire to travel the world, not only physically, but also internally. To undertake in an exalted way the search for what Susan Sontag advances.
Although I posed for photographers over the years, there was always in me this curiosity to see on the other side of the mirror. I also think while smiling at the word “trans” as prefixmeaning “beyond”, expressing the idea of change, of crossing.
So here I am, five years later, since this dream that I nurtured of owning a film camera. Here it is, in my hands, this relic of another era. Before, I was content with my cell phone to take pictures, but I realized that I was losing the magic of the moment by bombarding things without taking the time to fully grasp their essence. Thanks to the limited number of poses on a film, I am now learning to be more patient, to live in the moment. There is poetry in the gymnastics of photography. Handle the device with care, calibrate it as appropriately as possible in order to bring in the light according to the context of the poem to be written. It’s more difficult for me to take selfies and I think anyway that in order to know myself, to feel what I’m going through, I can also observe the way in which I captured certain landscapes.
Being in the present, as in “instant”, but also as in “gift”. This camera reminds me that time is offered and tasted in gulps. Despite the thousands of photos in my cell phone, only a few end up being evocative. With the camera, it’s different; the weight of excitement is simultaneously in my heart and in my hands. There is in me a feverishness of not having access to the photos taken on the spot. A great lesson here, accepting that sometimes you can’t control everything or quite seize the moment as we felt, which, in my opinion, makes taking a photo much more precious.
Photography as a writing of the moment, the photo as a constantly changing poem according to our vision of the world.
I wanted to praise slowness today, because despite all the galloping horses inside me, a day is only made up of twenty-four hours. Whether you run or walk on this day, the beauty of it is that we all get there at the same time. Now I have an invaluable tool at my disposal that reminds me to take the time to take the time, one photo at a time.