I photographed the entire thing in color because to photograph it in black and white would be to keep it as a tragedy. Because there is a tragic element to photographing, in this case not war, but the collapse. It was just destruction.
Interpretation
Photographing in color captures the reality of destruction more fully than black and white, which conveys tragedy.
In this quote, Joel Meyerowitz reflects on the significance of color in photography, particularly in depicting moments of collapse and destruction. He emphasizes that using color allows for a more nuanced and realistic portrayal of such events, highlighting their complexity rather than reducing them to mere tragedy, which might be suggested through black and white imagery.
In practice
During a photo exhibition discussing the impact of natural disasters, this quote could provide context about the choice of color in photography.
They [photographs] teach you about your own unraveling past, or about the immediacy of yesterday. They show you what you look at. If you take a photograph, you've been responsive to something, and you looked hard at it. Hard for a thousandth of a second, hard for ten minutes. But hard, nonetheless. And it's the quality of that bite that teaches you how connected you were to that thing, and where you stood in relation to it, then and now.
I find it strangely beautiful that the camera with its inherent clarity of object and detail can produce images that in spite of themselves offer possibilities to be more than they are a photograph of nothing very important at all, nothing but an intuition, a response, a twitch from the photographer’s experience.
We think of photography as pictures. And it is. But I think of photography as ideas. And do the pictures sustain your ideas or are they just good pictures? I want to have an experience in the world that is a deepening experience, that makes me feel alive and awake and conscious.
Then I thought, Whoa. If there are no photographs, then there is no history. I'm going to get in there. I'm going to make these pictures. We need a record.
Photography is about being exquisitely present.
Photography is a response that has to do with the momentary recognition of things. Suddenly you're alive. A minute later there was nothing there. I just watched it evaporate. You look one moment and there's everything, next moment it's gone. Photography is very philosophical.
Art has a way of confronting us, of reminding us, of engaging us, in what it means to be human, and what it means to be human is to be flawed, is to be contradictory, is to be often weak, and yet despite all of these what we would consider drawbacks, that we're also quite beautiful. Spin is the opposite.
Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren't meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.
I don't think the goal is, 'How big a star did you ever become?' I think the goal is, 'Were you able to express yourself?' And if you're able to say yes, in any field, you've won. If you paint, write, do mosaics, knit - if it's solving that part of your brain saying, 'I need to do this,' you've won.
I know a tree feels it when the wind blows through it. It probably goes, 'Chhhhhh, this is wonderful.' And that's how I feel when I'm singing some songs. It's wonderful.
The writer's job is not to write a novel, hold it up and say, “Here I am,” but to write a novel, hold it up and say, “Here YOU are.
Know what your characters want, know what they need most, know what they fear most, and don't be fearful of facing it, no matter how unpleasant it may be.
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