Now & Here

July 6, 2012

Sarah Moon

Very often I say to myself: “I would like to make a photo where nothing happens.” My dream would be to achieve that purity. But in order to eliminate, there must be something there to begin with. For nothing to happen, something has to happen first. When I work on a set, with a lot of props, I end up by throwing most of them out, or by mixing them up, or by using mirrors so that one doesn’t know what is part of the set and what isn’t. I would like to get rid of all the make-up, so that the make-up would be forgotten, to take off all the clothes. I spend my time eliminating things, with the hope that there will be something left that will surprise me, that will make me forget that I am in a studio, in front of a model that I have booked, on a set on which I have spent hours fussing, with lights that it has taken a whole day to set up. Ultimately, what makes me press the shutter is a feeling of recognition. As if suddenly I felt: “yes, that’s it “. In fact, these are the very words that come to my lips. I “recognize” something that I had never seen until that moment, that is beyond all my intentions.

Very often I say to myself: “I would like to make a photo where nothing happens.” My dream would be to achieve that purity. But in order to eliminate, there must be something there to begin with. For nothing to happen, something has to happen first. When I work on a set, with a lot of props, I end up by throwing most of them out, or by mixing them up, or by using mirrors so that one doesn’t know what is part of the set and what isn’t. I would like to get rid of all the make-up, so that the make-up would be forgotten, to take off all the clothes. I spend my time eliminating things, with the hope that there will be something left that will surprise me, that will make me forget that I am in a studio, in front of a model that I have booked, on a set on which I have spent hours fussing, with lights that it has taken a whole day to set up. Ultimately, what makes me press the shutter is a feeling of recognition. As if suddenly I felt: “yes, that’s it “. In fact, these are the very words that come to my lips. I “recognize” something that I had never seen until that moment, that is beyond all my intentions.

12:19am

(Notes: 37)