Lire en françaisThe magic camera: a love manifesto.I'm going to tell you how a 40-euro blue children's camera, printing on thermal paper like a sales receipt, enabled and inspired me to do photography differently.
This children's camera, which can be any color as long as it's flashy, in the shape of a dinosaur, a unicorn or your favorite animal, I affectionately called it "the magic camera". I gave it this nickname because it has allowed me to experience countless moments that I would never have experienced with a traditional camera - truly magical moments. On the other hand, I have to admit that its official name, "realikids instant cam", wasn't particularly appealing or poetic. This amusing and reassuring object, which prints very poor quality black and white photos - in less than two seconds - at virtually no cost, gave me a glimpse of a potentially radically different practice of photography: more ethical, more egalitarian, more agreed; more fun, more playful, more human too. A practice also probably less colonialist, less egotistical, less predatory, less vain. A practice with a gift, a trace, materializing the encounter.
These few lines are a manifesto for a photography of connection, sharing, exchange and encounter; a reflection on how a children's camera can invite us to think differently about our photographic practice, on how a "toy" can enable us not to cut ourselves off from either others or ourselves.
The magic camera: resolutely "woke" photography.
Just as "there's nothing more we can say", I hope that one day we'll be able to say "we can't photograph anything anymore" (as we used to, that is), and all the better for it. The lexical field of photography is sometimes terrifying: we "machine-gun" and "take" photos "in bursts". And what about that photo magazine with the equally warlike title "Chasseur d'images"? We've not yet taken the photos we're fantasizing about, but they're already ours, and we'll do anything to make sure they're as rich and prestigious as possible, "in war as in war". Our photographic practice is imbued with this militaristic and predatory thinking, and even our cameras, often imposing and disquieting, we use in a gesture reminiscent of a rifle, "aiming" at our "target" hidden behind the eyecup. I'm generally uncomfortable when I'm pointed this way myself; and yet "it's only a photo", you might say. But what if it's much more than that?
Concerning the magic camera, is reassuring, harmless, amusing and quirky; it arouses curiosity, empathy, and something of the order of gentleness and playfulness. There's no hunting here, no stalking. On the contrary, we're looking for connection and complicity, and instead of asking, for example, "Can I take your photo", we'll suggest "Can I offer you something fun? It's a radically different way of getting in touch with the other person, where the photo is also and above all a pretext for creating a bond, a memory, an anecdote, a shared story, however brief it may be. Through photography, what kind of encounter do we provoke or not? What consideration do we give to others and to ourselves? The magic camera is an object of social connection that forces us to talk to each other, to stop hiding behind a telephone screen or a telephoto lens, an object in the fight against individualism that unites us and brings us together for a moment. There's something revolutionary about provoking an encounter in which the photo is almost incidental: it's a cry of love, a relaxed smile for strangers. There's something political about it: the other is not my enemy, nor is he or she a competitor; on the contrary, he or she is my playmate, my fellow man, my mirror, my alter ego; the other is me, and I give him or her what I would like to receive.
With the magic camera, the initiative to take a photo is often quickly reversed, with the subject - and sometimes even the witnesses to the scene around them - becoming the requesters of the photos. I no longer ask people to take photos; on the contrary, they ask me if I can take them. Suddenly, I'm also at the service of my subject. An exchange takes place and magic happens! Everything becomes fluid, fair and natural.
The magic device: what if we start by giving? How about connecting with others?
We "take" a photo. But what do we "give" when we photograph? In general, we don't give anything, not even our time. We just take it and go. For a long time, I wondered whether a photo could be "stolen" or "asked for", without ever finding a satisfactory answer to either option. Today, with the magic camera, a new option is emerging, that of a photograph that can be shared, where we can give and receive in a symmetrical way. As soon as the photo is taken, it's already printed, ten times faster than with any Polaroid, and this is one of the magical strengths of this camera: a printing speed that can be counted in seconds and that changes everything. As soon as I release the shutter button, I can hand you the image, offer it to you, print as many copies as you like, discuss it, and start all over again. The quality of the picture, which is extremely poor, is of no importance: the picture exists, it's there, tangible, I'm already giving it to you, you can touch it, and all this is priceless, especially in our societies where we've forgotten the value of giving and in an age when we rarely print our photos. This two-cent piece of paper is a treasure. I have something physical to give you in memory of our meeting, and I'll leave with the same thing, a piece of paper, a proof of love, a mutual recognition, a piece of humanity snatched from existence.
For me, this relational satisfaction is superior to the potential quality and technical perfection of any other photo. This satisfaction makes me happy and brings joy to the other person. Often, the piece of paper is immediately slipped into the wallet or under the transparent cover of the smartphone - in other words, over the fireplace! The importance suddenly taken up by this photo of such low technical quality is almost revolutionary in the age of AI, which almost all of us now carry in our pockets.
The magic camera: what if we do not separate the work from the author? What if we give up taking photos?
I want to know how a photo was taken; I want to know because this way of photographing speaks as much about the author as his work, it's inseparable it seems to me. You are in your work. It's your humanity, or lack of it, that interests me most, because that's the only thing that will change the world. I want to adhere to a process rather than a work. I think that the end doesn't justify the means: if there's no ethics, there's no work; then in the worst case there's only an anti-work, an anti-humanity, a lie, a betrayal; and in the best case, simply regret and pain. From the magnificent photo of the young Afghan woman photographed by Steve McCurry, I essentially remember the words of the latter, Sharbat Gula, "I had no choice but to pose for this photo". What if we gave up taking certain photos? If I had to choose, I'd rather this photo didn't exist. Making photos could be not making photos, making photos could be agreeing not to take certain photos. Perhaps some photos should remain mental; then yes, we're going to "miss" and "lose" a certain number of them (according to commercial, capitalist, aesthetic and prestige criteria), but we'll undoubtedly gain a surplus of humanity in those we start to take; we should be delighted about this, because there's a need for humanity.
With the magic camera, it's the photographed subject who's in demand, and this also puts the place of consent back at the center of our thinking. The eventual perfection of a shot becomes anecdotal comparing to the story being told and shared. It's no longer just an image, it's truly an encounter and an exchange, the story of an image. With the magic camera, we have an object that questions our ethics and how we want to and can make photographs. That's the real power of art. It's about fighting against emptiness, consumerism, cynicism, colonialism and ego.
The magic camera: anti-capitalist photography.
We consume goods, we consume nature, we consume other people's bodies, especially women's. Capitalism proposes a logic of global consumption, and photography is no exception. We store our photographs in our portfolios, just as we pin our conquests to our "hunting lists", just as we "make" a country when we visit it. We accumulate, we consume, we collect. Photography responds to the same logic of consumer goods. Today, everyone "takes" photos, it's never been easier, and you don't need to be a photographer to do it.
What if we tried to strike a balance between what we take and what we give? A mathematical, human, almost karmic balance. The subject we photograph is often only as valuable as what it can bring us: money, fame, prestige, public recognition or recognition from our peers. We need to reinvent our relationship with the other, with our "subject", which is not a hunting ground. Is the other our alter ego, or are we on a photo safari (whether next door or on the other side of the world)? The magic camera is a champion of anti-capitalist photography!
The magic camera: praise for non-performance.
The magic camera is the opposite of photography, which races for performance, perfection, the fastest autofocus, pixels and the best resolution. The technical characteristics of the Magic Camera are so shameful that I won't even mention them! However, no amount of AI or tens of millions of pixels will be able to compete with an adorable forty-euro green crocodile-shaped camera that prints out a two-cent photo in less than two seconds, which I can instantly give away and share...
The photo produced will be of little technical interest, but the meeting and the story will have to be beautiful, won't they?
Would you like to discover a few stories about the magic camera?
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Would you like to discover a few stories about the magic camera?
Click here !
Would you like to discover a few stories about the magic camera?
Click here !