His Banner Over Me Is Love

The pleasure of a photographer

While all photographs are “memento mori”, a “participat[ion] in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability”, ”photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention”. ”A photograph is not just the result of an encounter between an event and a photographer; picture-taking is an event in itself, and one with ever more peremptory rights- to interfere with, to invade, or to ignore whatever is going on”.

Sontag makes interesting claims on photography in On Photography.  
Yet, her claims should not be viewed simplistically, what’s significant is not to understand or classify this as a positive or negative phenomenon (though at times, her diction like “peremptory” and “ignore” does lead us to judge), rather, it interests me to reflect on the function of the distance and detachment in the event of picture-taking. 

Beyond the process of producing ”ghostly traces” and “token presences”, the act of photographing shape the very experience of “seeing”. The photographer sees the world differently from anyone else, not merely because of the photographic frame but the event of picture-taking that involves giving worth to what is seen. Worth not just in the form or product of photographs (are photographs the focus and ultimate prerogative of photography? maybe not..), but an effect in the heart of the photographer himself or herself. This, to me, is what makes photography special, (and if I may be bold to add) more special than all other art forms.

Maybe it involves a more acute awareness of time and space. Sontag writes that  ”photographs help people take imaginary possession of space in which they are insecure”, yet, perhaps, it is a non-tangible appreciation of life that is more significantly taking place.  

While there is some truth in her claim that “the photographer ha[ving] the choice between a photograph and a life, choose the photograph”, I propose not a mere dichotomy between life and photograph, rather, a different kind of life or vision that a photographer is invited to. Perhaps, one could think of the picture-taking event as itself a lens to this world. Not technically and literally of course. 

But in all, what’s most significant to me is the pleasure of photographing. There is pleasure in this mediation, and perhaps, meditation. I don’t know why. Maybe it involves appreciating the little things and taking joy in what’s easily taken for granted. Maybe it opens the eyes of our hearts to see how everything is beautiful in His time.