Photography is magic. Cow dung, the animal excrement Indians put aside for the “untouchables”, and of which we, in wealthy countries, leave to be processed by immigrant workers, is transformed into the face of man. The red-skin exists because, looking on nature, a man can see in the color of the earth the confirmation that his human envelop can be red. At first glance, stones offer faces that express more pain than pleasure or joy. It is a matter of fact. As prisoners of stones, how could these faces be happy? It is strange to notice that stones, earth and trees are able to show us so many unthought-of changes in colors, as though chemistry had not found more beauty than what can be seen among the surfaces and depths of nature. And, when you have a chance to get to the mines of Minas Geiras, there is still more. When I observe all these colors coming from the most remote depths of the earth, I cannot but think of the miners who have taken the black ore out to the light, ore as black as the bottom of the earth itself. And think at the same time of multi-colored rocks, coming from the deepest cavities, with a transparency and brightness that time would not be able to alter through oxidation provoked by the atmo sphere. Isn’t it air and light that bring colors out? Camera oscura As a child, I began to dream inside of a “camera oscura”. The window of my bedroom in Bourg en Bresse opened on a street and a sort of pedestrian alley with plane trees. The window was closed by two separated shutters, made of a wood frame covered by tarred canvas. Through long use, holes had been punched in them. On Sunday mornings, when I could remain in bed, the day arose and the light came inside the room as in a “camera obscura”: I could see on the wall opposite to the shut ters the reversed shapes of automobiles and passers-by on the sidewalk, as in a moving picture film with reversed shadows. I was born in a camera. (English translation by Claire Macheras)
new | 1_ 2005
113