Taking Photos or Stealing Souls? Part 1
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with taking photos of people. On one hand, there's an undeniable allure in capturing the essence of a person, freezing a moment in time that speaks volumes about them. However, there's also a sense of vulnerability and intimacy that can be unsettling.
Peering into the raw emotions of subjects can be both mesmerizing and discomforting. The responsibility to honor their essence while also presenting it authentically can feel like walking a tightrope between admiration and intrusion.
A couple of years ago, while reading The Accidental Masterpiece, a terrific book of wide-ranging critical reflections by Michael Kimmelman, former NYT Chief Art Critic and now the paper’s Architecture Critic, I came upon a startling observation by the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. He and Kimmelman discuss Pierre Bonnard, who happens to be Cartier-Bresson’s favorite modern painter. As they talk about how hard Bonnard tried to capture the essence of his wife Marthe on canvas, Cartier-Bresson says the following:
“There’s something appalling about photographing people. It is certainly some sort of violation; so, if sensitivity is lacking, there can be something barbaric about it.”
That observation took me back in time, to mid-1980s, to be exact. By the way, if someone tells you they don’t want to go back to the 1980s, they’re either not old enough, or they’re lying, or they’re out of their mind. Anyway, I went to Borough Park to film a young mother playing in a park with her child. It was just a simple lighting exercise for one of the production classes at the film school I was attending at the time. But I wanted to do something different, something fresh.
Borough Park is a neighborhood in Brooklyn densely populated by Orthodox Jews, mainly Hasidim. My plan was to do a two-minute slow-motion moving shot (shopping cart and 16mm Bolex camera) of the mother chasing her son around the park, holding onto her wig with one hand and reaching toward the child with the other, as the kid’s sidelocks swing wildly in the wind. My family and I lived in the neighborhood adjacent to Borough Park. So, someone we knew reached out to someone they knew, and a date for the shoot was set.
But when we finally set up the shot, the boy’s father appeared -- a man in black sporting a regal beard and worn-out shoes. He looked either 25 or 85, depending on the light. He took me aside. “Listen, you don’t have to pray to my God or even believe what I’m going to tell you. Things are the way they are just because that’s how things are. Because the creator made them so. Because we’re not in control of any of it.” He paused for a moment and looked me in the eyes. “Whenever you take a picture of someone, you steal their soul. And that means you’re responsible for them for the rest of your life.” “I’m not taking a picture. It’s a moving image. A completely different animal,” I protested. “A moving image is a continuous sequence of still shots. So… tell me… are you willing to be responsible for my son for the rest of your life?”
I had just turned 19 but I was already developing a lifelong allergy to responsibility. My “cinematographer” and I folded our equipment and went home. I ended up filming my mother making blintzes with liver. Several decades have passed, but I’m still thinking about that “soul thing” whenever I take a photo of someone head-on. Needless to say, I prefer to take photos of older folks – being responsible for someone over 50… or better yet, sixty… is much easier than carrying the burden on behalf of a whippersnapper who’s got years to go before they sleep.
As always, thanks for reading! I would love to know your thoughts on photographing people and soul stealing.
‘Til next time.
ak
Thanks for your comment, Stella. This is really interesting and tells us how similar radically different cultures are. We're all drawing from the same well, and have been for millennia. :)
I love taking portraits but suffer from the same reservations as you. One thing I will say is that, in general, because of social media Gen Z seem more amenable to having their photo taken than prior generations. The only catch with this is the propensity to pose for the photo rather than allowing you to get a natural shot.