"Presence" series
by Karin Lisa Atkinson
Location: Venice Beach, Los Angeles, Nova Scotia, Hawai'i
Camera: Nikon D3100 and Sony DSC-RX100M2 (pocket camera)
Conditions: Natural light, usually wind, no flash, no tripod
"A photograph is always invisible,
it is not it that we see.
The photographic image...
... is a message without a code.
What the Photograph reproduces
to infinity
has occurred only once:
the Photograph mechanically repeats
what could never be repeated existentially.
The photograph is literally
an emanation of the referent.
From a real body,
which was there,
proceed radiations
which ultimately touch me,
who am here;
the duration of the transmission is insignificant;
the photograph of the missing being,
as Sontag says,
"will touch me like the delayed rays of a star."
Ultimately -
or at the limit -
in order to see a photograph well,
it is best to look away
or close your eyes.
For me the noise of Time is not sad:
I love bells, clocks, watches -
and I recall
that at first
photographic implements
were related
to techniques of cabinetmaking
and the machinery of precision:
cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing,
and perhaps in me
someone very old
still hears
in the photographic mechanism
the living sound of the wood.
So let us become a little detached,
let us undertake the apprenticeship
of a certain distance ...
... in order to see a photograph well,
it is best to look away or close your eyes."
~ Roland Barthes 1915-1980 (France)
Excerpts from "Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography"
Quote of Susan Sontag from her book "On Photography",
"The photograph of the missing being will touch me like the delayed rays of a star."
Excerpt:
"So let us become a little detached, let us undertake the apprenticeship of a certain distance."
taken from "A Lover's Discourse: Fragments"
by Roland Barthes
Translated by Richard Howard
