ยฉ Bruno Barbey
The Weight of a Print
Over the last two days I have printed all the photographs that will be shown at Voices. Twenty images. Twenty times I picked up a still-warm sheet and stopped.
Not to check the quality, that too, of course. But for something else I had not anticipated.
Every time I held a print in my hands, I thought about where that photographer had been when they pressed the shutter. Vukovar under siege. Palermo after an ambush. The border between the two Koreas. Karachi, Kabul, Haiti, the Egyptian desert. Places I have never been, where I would not have known how to do what they did. Places where the camera was not a tool, it was a reason to be there.
I was in a studio, with a precision printer, in perfect conditions. They were there, in the middle of something you do not choose to live through, with the responsibility of documenting what others will never see directly. That distance cannot be measured in kilometers. It is measured in what you are willing to risk to bring an image into the world.
That distance weighs on me. In the good sense of the word, it weighs on me the way something you care about should. And it made me understand that handling a print well is not only a technical matter. It is a form of respect for those who paid a real price for that photograph.
We exhibit without glass, a choice that goes beyond aesthetics, beyond the way light falls on paper without reflections. It means not placing a barrier between the viewer and what was made. It means letting the print breathe in the same space as the person looking at it. It means honoring the work of those who produced that photograph with their body, not only with their mind.
These photographs made history. I printed them with my hands. On Monday I will hang them on a wall. It is a privilege I do not take lightly. And one I will carry with me long after the exhibition closes.
VOICES – European Festival of Media Freedom & Journalism
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.