"Seitdem der Autor den eigenen geistigen Impulsen vertraute," Adorno writes in the preface (Vorrede) to Negative Dialectics, "empfand er es als seine Aufgabe, mit der Kraft des Subjekts den Trug konstitutiver Subjektivität zu durchbrechen". To what extent can you compare Barthes' effort in Camera Lucida to "formuler, à partir de quelques mouvements personnels, le trait fondamental, l'universel sans lequel il n'y aurait pas de Photographie"?

Utinam veritas adaequatio rerum et intellectus esset! Has poetry, literature, music, have sculptures, paintings and drawings ever been confronted with the concept of truth (let's forget about the loquacious objets trouvés of Magritte)? Take writers, they usually just make their story up. Movies are generally even worse - every interlaced line a lie! I concede that the application of the concept of truth for writings is not always making a lot of sense. Other than fiction, photography has been much more unfortunate and still has to be prepared to answer the question regarding the adequacy of the depicted res and the taken picture. This probably has its roots in the Pencil of Nature approach, when the concept of human non-interference in the creation of a photograph was - in hindsight of course - somewhat overemphasized (cf. écriture automatique). No wonder that towards the end of last century, this topos came under close scrutiny by many skilled in the art; also understandable that the general public is only about to realize what Photoshop et al can do: apparently it is difficult not to be able to rely on what finds its way to the visual cortex. Antonioni made quite some fun out of this - if you listen carefully, you can hear the tennis ball.

Three icons of photgraphy, Alli Mae Burroughs, Charis Wilson, and Sherry Levine - of whom it is very difficult to find a portrait. After Edward Weston and Walker Evans, Michael Mandiberg is still on the run, probably quite rightly so. In photography, men tend to disappear much more sustainably than women. read more

Benjamin isn't always my cup of tea, sometimes moving too much towards mysticism than I can appreciate, but he is down to the point when he describes certain post Atget photographs in his "A short history of photography" (1931) as "literary refinement of themes that Atget discovered". It is somewhat frustrating that Atget seems to have anticipated the majority of my own photographs! The above photograph to the left is mine and it was my intention to take a picture of architecture with some trees rather than the opposite. When looking at Atget's photographs of Notre Dame, I realized that he had also photographed a building and some trees. It shows both architecture/culture and nature in a much more discernible and identifiable way than my own picture. In addition, the shape of the tree goes extremely well with Notre Dame; a counterpoint qui s'est vraiment bien marié. It is incredible how carefully Atget has taken this photograph (there are others where I wonder; usually not those which Weston may have had in mind when describing Atget as "not [being] a fine technician"). read more

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As it is not Mr Talbot but nature herself who has taken the pencil in her hands, the question is not easily answered. Also, let us not look at l'écriture automatique for help. It is the author who must disappear before any deduction can be made. The first two dozen plates can give us some hints: let's eliminate, without further explaining why - sapienti sat - the shabby, the shoddy, and the boring: we need not: Oxford, articles, Greek heads, leaves, books, laces, facsimiles and we certainly feel some discomfort with what nature penciled of Lacock (12% of all plates). A haystack? A fruit piece? Alas, no! The ladder?! Not wholistic enough. - Go for plate VI, "The Open Door". The archetype of subservient photography, culminating in Atget's wish that his authorship of the above group picture not be published in la révolution surréaliste. What he had intending to do all along were mere "documents pour artistes". Man Ray tried to make Atget a surrealist; not without reason, it is therefore conceivable that he would have done the same to Mr Talbot based on the latter's plate XXV ... read more

In this picture of Montmartre, I was just testing a new lens for a special effect. When I went to America, I left most of my material in Paris, and when I returned I found sixty percent of the glass-plate negatives were broken. This one I saved, but it had a hole in it. I printed it anyway. An accident helped me produce a beautiful effect.

J'observai la petite fille et je retrouvai enfin ma mère.

If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other worlds, other territories.

El peix, la lluna, la mar em fonen com un fester.

Omnia dependent essentialiter a Luce, quod non esset verum nisi Lux esset causa illorum.

Some photographers take reality ... and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation.

Hill, on another note, Nicolaas is about to open an establishment where he apparently intends to print the plates "The Pencil of Nature".

... Susans Blick aber geht an ihm vorüber, saugend an eine unheilvolle Ferne gehaftet.

Merkwürdigerweise sind aber fast alle diese Bilder leer.

Es gibt eine zarte Empirie, die sich mit dem Gegenstand innigst identisch macht ...

Zertrümmerung (< trum, < terminus) of aura has a positive connotation: "he disinfected the sticky atmosphere - ja, er bereinigte sie."