重归复古摄影A take on vintage photography
我热爱家庭相簿。无论这些照片是在哪里拍摄的、如何拍摄的或者由谁拍摄的并不重要，无论这些照片是不是专业的也不重要，唯一重要的是这个人在这一天的行为的意义。为什么呢？例如，像学术专家和家庭主妇这样完全不同的人，他们会在照片里把头摆在相同的位置，比划着相同的手势吗？当知道老照片的实质时，我们当代人才会停止对“老古董”一样的老式摄影的嘲讽。I love family photograph albums. It‘s not important where, how or by whom the photographs were taken. It‘s not important whether they are sharp or not. The only important thing is the meaning of the person‘s action on that day. Why, for example, do absolutely different people, academics and housewives, put their heads into exactly the same hole in a picture with palms? Show the fundamental meaning in an old photograph, and our contemporaries will stop sneering at old ladies‘ photographs.
在生活当中有很多伪装，但是我们可以从这些虚伪中看到隐藏在背后的真实。而一张在装在框子里的老照片与与之一样有着同样的伪装。你必须从精神上突破这个框架，并观察照片，去发现它的现实本身。仔细观察它，如果照片太小，就把贴近你的眼睛，放大它。如果镜头含有明显的惯例拍摄的痕迹，你需要打破惯例，不要在意照片中人的姿势而是要看他的姿势是否违背了他的意愿。一些微小的背景细节就可能指向事实的本质。最重要的事情就是打破惯性的、欺骗性的障碍，并在活细胞中寻找真实，这样才能纵览全局。There is plenty of pretence in life, but we can see the truth hidden behind this pretence. An old photograph is the very same life, contained within a frame. You have to mentaly „break“ this frame, and look at the picture as it was reality itself. Just take a closer look. If it is too small, bring it nearer to eyes, magnify it. If the shot contains clear traces of the generic ritual of having your picture taken, you need to break the ritual, and focus not on the pose of the person being photographed, but on what the pose reveals against his will. Some tiny background detail may point to the essence. The most important thing is to break the generic, deceitful connections, and look for the truth in living cells, which actually constitute the general view.
完全沉浸在复古摄影中，我看到了从摄影存在开始就没有变化过的人类。在这些照片中，我总是看到自己，我的朋友，同样的激情，同样的爱与恨。复古照片让我想起了孤儿院的孩子：很多人可怜他们，但却很少有人敢接他们回家。在我开始筹备本次展览时， 我感到非常满足。这个展览对我来说比我做摄影作品还要更重要。在我看来，经过时间沉淀的老照片比我的摄影作品更加真实。Fully immersed in vintage photography, I see the same human being, almost unchanged during the time of photography‘s existence. In these photographs, I always saw myself, my friends, the same passion the same love and hatred. Vintage photographs remind me of orphanage kids: many pity them, but few dare to take them home. While I was working on the layout of „A take on vintage photography“, I felt deep satisfaction. This work seemed to me to be of greater significance than working on my own photographs. It appeared to me that old, time-tested photographs were truer than mine.
通过复古摄影，我想要从不同的角度来展示生命的层次，试着不再回避那些划破我们命运的利刃，而且，可能，这将持续很长一段时间。旧档案向我展现了人类的历史就像一个永远混乱的人际关系。Through vintage photography, I wanted to show life from various angles, trying to not shy away from the sharp edges that break our destinies, and, it seems, this will go on for a very long time. Old archives revealed to me the history of humanity as a never-ending tumult of human relationships.
不再遵循姓名和事件的等级制度和评估标准，在本书中，我拒绝了有关特定照片的所有信息。我没有忘记我以前很在意照片的拍摄时间，地点和人物，我知道很多读者认为这些细节很重要。然而，我谨慎的设法将这些照片所创造的印象合并成一个无缝的幻象；我希望读者以和我同样的方式来回应他们。Having ceased to follow the standards of evaluation and the standing hierarchy of names and events, in this book I have rejected all information about a particular photograph. I haven‘t forgotten that some time ago it was important to me when, where, and by whom the photograph had been taken, and I know that many readers see these details as significant. Yet I deliberately sought to incorporate the impression produces by these photographs into a seamless vision; I wanted the reader to respond to them in the same way I did.
起初，我试图根据社会现象和风格来分类相簿中的照片，强调生命与死亡的主题。但是之后我突然觉得我像一些立陶宛雕刻师的木雕神像，当我安排好桌子上的一切的时候，我觉得自己好像是上帝自己：一个印度人，一个美洲原住民，一个非洲人，一个白人，一个穆斯林，一个佛教徒，一个基督徒，沙皇的军队，波兰士兵，皇帝，战争，葬礼，婚姻在我眼前相映成趣。我把一切都混成了一堆 —成千上万的图像—然后看到了一些依然存在的秩序。终究这一切都是生命，我们所有人无不透露出自己是这里的人 - 不管他/她是一个拳击手，沙皇，乞丐，还是赤裸上身的女人。我意识到，摄影的归档是一个无底洞的镜子，等待着被观察与看穿。At first I tried to classify the photographs in the album according to social phenomena and styles, emphasizing the theme of life and death, and then I suddenly felt that I was like some Lithuanian carver of wooden statues of God, but when I arranged everything on the table, I felt as though I was God himself: an Indian, a Native American, an African, a white, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Christian, The Tsar‘s army, Polish soldiers, the Kaiser, war, funerals, marriages lay side by side before my eyes. I mixed everything into one pile – thousands of images – and saw that some order still persisted. After all, all of this is life, we all reveal ourselves as people here – no matter if one is a boxer, Tsar, beggar, or a topless woman. I realized that archive photography was the mirror of a bottomless well, waiting to be looked at and fathomed.