"…Because once you’ve begun," he would preach, "there is no reason why you should stop. The line between the reality that is photographed because it seems beautiful to us and the reality that seems beautiful because it has been photographed is very narrow. If you take a picture of Pierluca because he’s building a sand castle, there is no reason not to take his picture while he’s crying because the castle has collapsed, and then while the nurse consoles him by helping him find a sea shell in the sand. The minute you start saying something, ‘Ah, how beautiful! We must photograph it!’ you are already close to the view of the person who thinks that everything that is not photographed is lost, as if it had never existed, and that therefore, in order really to live, you must photograph as much as you can, and to photograph as much as you can you must either live in the most photographable way possible, or else consider photographable every moment of your life. The first course leads to stupidity; the second to madness."
"You’re the one who’s mad and stupid," his friends would say to him, "and a pain in the ass, into the bargain."
It's a fantastic story which you can read in full here. I like it for the sheer variety and creativity of different ways of understanding photography it explores. I also like it for its over-the-top main character whose commitment to a misguided ideal of philosophical purity is a funny and sad example of "the examined life" run amok.In any case, I hope you enjoy it!
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