Theatre Thursday May 19, 2005
If Photography seems to me closer to the Theater, it is by way of a singular intermediary … by way of Death …. However lifelike we strive to make it (and this frenzy to be lifelike can only be our mythic denial of an apprehension of death), Photography is a kind of primitive theater, a kind of Tableau Vivant, a figuration of the motionless and made-up face beneath which we see the dead (Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: 31–32)
The intrigue and power of some kinds of photography can be accounted for in terms of narrative theory. Many of Cartier-Bresson’s images are decisive moments when something dramatic is happening, not entirely explained. You can see the emotion on faces and the context of the particular situation, but you cannot fully decode its meaning. This social photography has its own special appeal, and requires a particular way of working. My approach tends to be slow and laboured, watching the light and composing carefully, but you cannot do that with candid or street photography. I recently saw two people working on TV and found it educational; the first was a professional (I forget his name) and the second was Cartier-Bresson. In both cases, they snapped a moment and continued to walk without any pause: no looking back, no eye contact, no reflection and no attempt to exercise fine control. It happens in a second and you move on immediately. This has its own particular psychology. You are like a tourist, forming no relationship with the person, and this gives you – hopefully – a kind of invisibility. At some level the person may know they’ve been photographed, but at another level they are not concerned because there was no obvious threat. The only way of resolving this would be to confront the photographer, but they doubt themselves due to lack of evidence. In those few seconds, meanwhile, you have walked away or turned your back, as part of the innocuous surroundings. In one sense you are confronting the person with a camera, but you do it in such a way that you are a harmless presence. You recognise and capture the emotion, but without engaging with it.
When I was doing my first English degree I discovered the theatrical exploration called the Theatre of the Absurd, and in another part of my studies I learned about psychodrama i.e. the dramatic, therapeutic resolution of psychological conflicts. Prior to that, in my A level studies I’d read about Erving Goffman’s notion of the dramaturgical model of sociology, explaining social interaction in terms of theatrical and role based expectations. As a street photographer you can understand this, and find it fascinating, and you understand how not to get enmeshed or involved in it. Like Kwai Chang Kaine, you walk without leaving a trace. Then later you look at the pictures you captured, not knowing exactly what is there, and enjoy them differently from a landscape shot which was slowly and carefully obtained. You look at a grabbed street shot with more leisure than you had in the moment; with as much leisure as you like, free from any concern about confrontation or unwanted dialogue.
On a Cartier-Bresson documentary someone commented about his ability to be in the right place at the right time more consistently than probably any other photographer, achieving a substantial body of memorable work. And although random and unpredictable, and uncontrollable, I suspect that stalking the decisive moment entails an intuitive theatrical sense which cannot be demanded, but like the writer’s muse is acknowledged and eventually becomes delicately reliable. It is a psychological concern, based on an experience and understanding of people.
We have an inherent curiosity about watching and seeing other people, and there are situations when we reveal thought, mood and character by posture, gait and facial expression. Portrait photographers know this, (except perhaps with the stereotyped formal style which reveals very little), and street photographers stalk it. All photography is intimately psychological, but street work has an additional psychology in terms of social and theatrical content.