Hochgeladen am 02.09.2000
1 | What is a camera? | |
2 | A camera is an extension of ourselves. An appendage to bring us closer to the universe. | |
3 | We created such an instrument, because we had lost the joy of pure seeing, of connecting up the unseen and heartfelt with the seen and not heartfelt. The internal with the external. | |
4 | The proof of this experience is our photograph. This is the Iron Age, the age of proofs. | |
5 | Our photograph proves to us that we have broken through our veils and become our universe. | |
6 | We have allowed the picture and the picturetaker and the picturetaking to become one. Inseparable in a moment of no time. | |
7 | And then we forget. | |
8 | We go back into time. | |
9 | Which is why we take more pictures. | |
10 | The internal with the external = the Eternal. | |
11 | So photography, too, is a search for God. | |
12 | We must approach it with a clean mind and a pure heart. | |
13 | Which is to say: we must keep ourselves as clean as we would our lens and our bellows. | |
14 | A camera is only an intermediary between us and a new us. To repeat: we must be as receptive and ready as our equipment. | |
15 | If we photograph with a hangover, our pictures are hangovers. | |
16 | Unless we develop a will. | |
17 | ... | |
18 | Anyone with a camera can take a picture. Not everyone with a camera is a photographer. | |
19 | Technical information can be learnt in schools. Great photographs can be seen in libraries and museums. But where is photography to be found? | |
20 | In the heart. | |
21 | It is we ourselves who make a picture. | |
22 | Either we see it or we don't. | |
23 | It is as simple as that or this. | |
24 | The way lies not in the equipment. | |
30 | ... | |
... | ... | |
161 | When I first used a camera I painted the sky in the meadow with the bird and the tree and the flower and the sun and the water. Later I painted the sky in the meadow with the bird and the tree and the flower and the sun. And later I painted the sky in the meadow and the bird and the tree and the flower. Later I painted the meadow and the flower. Then a person. Now I paint the sky in the meadow with the bird and the tree and the flower and the sun and the water and a person. | |
162 | This is Zen in the art of photography. In discovering the universe, we discover ourselves. | |
| © 1969 Robert Leverant. | With
a camera we can bring light where there is darkness. Or darkness where there is light. | |