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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016
Pierre: Powerful photos capture the decisive moments in life
Continued from Page 1C
So I don’t know why exactly I went to
Vietnam. It was the place to be for photojour-
nalists at the time. But on top of that there was
this kind of idea that it was important to report
and to participate a little tiny bit in stopping
the process. Which is a big utopia. I think that
opportunity didn’t stop anything, but at the time
I was young and thinking it was important to
report. Like many young journalists in the ’60s
or in the ’70s we were all thinking it was our
mission to report and stop. It was a big stupid
thing, but you do not have the experience when
you are 20. So I was drawn in the beginning
like that. It just happened like that.
It was not really something I wanted to do.
Like any path, you don’t know why you follow
it.
Q: What to you makes a powerful photo?
A: Usually it’s because you capture the
right moment. Those kind of little magical
moments in action where everything goes
together correctly. The way it’s framed, the
way all the people are, their place in the image
and their expressions.
That’s what Henri Cartier-Bresson called
‘the decisive moment,’ which is an expression
which is very true and still valid today. There
are the decisive moments in life. One of the
magics of photography is that it’s the only
medium that allows you to capture such a
moment that only lasts for 1/250th of a second.
It’s really so short. And that’s it.
At least in the kind of photography that I Rome, Italy.
am talking about, which is photojournalism or
street photography. I’m not talking about still
‘One of the magics
life photography or landscape but the right
moment is important there. So I think that’s
of photography is
what makes photography stand alone. And it’s
that it’s the only
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one year — a real photograph where everything
medium that allows
comes together, that’s approximately it. It’s
not much. And you put all the photography
you to capture such
together, because they are all taken at about
1/125th of a second. At the end of your life
a moment that only
when you look at your good photos, it can only
be two seconds or three seconds so it’s a very, lasts for 1/250th of a
very short time.
French photographer Robert Doisneau second. It’s really so
published a book called (“Three Seconds of
short. And that’s it.’
Eternity”) and that’s what it took to take all
the good pictures in his life. So that gives an
Pierre Toutain-Dorbec
idea of how short those moments are. And you
French photographer
cannot miss it.”
Q: Do you think digital photography is
hurting or helping photography?
A: That is a more complicated subject than
it seems. I think there is both good and bad.
The good is that now the quality that has been
reached in digital photography.
I have seen all the progress of this new
way in my lifetime and now we have reached
a point where it is very interesting in the
quality. There are more cameras that are now
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And in a digital darkroom there is the ability
to make prints that are very good. So I think
that is interesting. Also for professionals, the
opportunity to go faster and deliver the photos
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obvious that that is a big advantage in the
world we are living in.
Now, in my opinion, the big disadvan-
tage is, because of the quality of the cameras
that can do everything alone, the quality
of the photography is going down a lot.
Because most of the young photographers
I see don’t have a clue. They let the camera
do everything. And most of them don’t know
what to do, how to do it, how it works.
So there is this new generation of photog-
rapher that shoots like crazy and sometimes I
see some young photographer and they say,
‘Oh, I shot 500 photos in a day and after I try
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to work. It’s better to make one shot the good
one. I think this is a pity that a lot of photog-
raphers have forgotten that, even if the tool is
fantastic, that the human being needs to have
the knowledge and needs to know what to do.
In everything in life, as soon as you use
a tool, even if it’s a fantastic tool, you need
to know how to use it. You can take the best
brushes and the best colors and the best
canvas but this will not make you a painter.
I think that’s a pity in a way because a lot
of those photographers are not able to take
advantage of the fantastic cameras there are
now because the camera is so fantastic that
they think that they don’t have to do anything
themselves.
I think it’s a great pity for photography
in general. I know that my point of view is
shared by my generation of photographer but
we all think that it’s a little bit of a pity for
photography what has happened now.
Q: I noticed this when I went to your
exhibit and you went to showing some of
the war images and then Tibet, India and
Photos by Pierre Toutain-Dorbec
Nepal, and then you switched to landscapes.
Why did you make the switch?
A: There is a little bit of humans, but far
less. But that is photography in the USA.
There is not the same contact with human Nepal Circus.
beings here as there is anywhere else in the
world. As a photographer, if you arrive in a
tiny village in India everyone will come to
see you, and touch you, and they smile, and
they ask where you are from. And they will
talk and invite you for the tea and you cannot
refuse because it’s part of the welcome.
In the USA, it is the opposite. If you are
arriving in a small village most of the time
people will look at you weird. (They will
ask), ‘What are you doing here?’ And that’s
what I heard many times in the USA. ‘Why
are you taking a picture?’ And so I say, ‘I’m
sorry, did I disturb you, I’m on the road?’ And
they say, ‘Yes, but what are you doing here?’
And not nicely.
So you don’t have the same contact, so
of course you don’t have the same situation,
and you don’t take the same kind of photos.
That’s the main reason why. I did not travel
everywhere in the USA, but I’d go on big
road trips for the past 10 years and for me,
it’s a big problem because I’m not used to
that. And there is some areas where it’s better
like in the coast here it’s kind of OK. But in
Eastern Oregon, in places like Prairie City, Rajasthan, India.
people come up to me and are like, ‘Why are
you taking pictures here?’ ‘Who are you?’ So
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beings are your main subject.
For this reason, if you noticed some of
the major photography that has been done in
America by some of the major photographers
like Irving Penn or Richard Avedon you will
notice that it’s studio work. You have to go
through the process of bringing (the subject)
in, explaining what you are doing. And this
kind of photography doesn’t really exist when
you go to shoot in other countries because
you have a proximity with the human being
which isn’t the same.
So that’s the reason for the landscapes,
I’m photographing with what I have at my
disposal. If someone won’t let you in their
home and there is barbed wire and a sign that
says, ‘no trespassing,’ it’s better not to. You
cannot pass and say, ‘I’m a photographer.’
So I have less human beings, unfortunately,
and a little more landscape. And I like the
landscape around here. But I regret not being
able to photograph human beings here like I
always do.
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