Photographic vision is an eye witness to something which it conveys as tradition. It is “not made with hands”, exactly like the first icons as legends tell us.
This makes me think every time what an image is. It is totally other than the grave of the “decisive moment” (Cartier-Bresson). If it deserves to be viewed as decisive, it is decisive room, decisive trace and decisive offer instead.
Originality thus cannot be among the primary obsessions of photography. New pictures should rather refer to something very old or timeless.
Photographic image does not encapsulate interesting slices of past but reminds the viewer of her sick memory. Instead of closing time, this nostalgia opens it; instead of sending it to exile, it belongs to the future. The image thus becomes the mirror of time, and time becomes the mirror of something totally other, an icon of life and dynamism.
As Hiroshi Sugimoto, one of the greatest, said, "The concept of time plays a role in many of them, as does focus. When the image is out of focus, the concept is in focus. When the image is in focus, the concept is out of focus, or as I prefer to say, it's focused at twice the infinity point. I try to make the concept sharp in my perception, but on film it just comes out blurry."
