“I want to become as beautiful as a sewer rat”
“Because there is beauty that cannot be captured in a photograph”
I sometimes find myself suddenly remembering these words from “Linda Linda” by THE BLUE HEARTS, a Japanese punk band.
Of course, I believe the “beauty that cannot be captured in a photograph” Hiroto sang about was not so much beauty that cannot be captured by the technology of photography, but rather something that cannot be measured by conventional standards of outward appearance alone.
Even so, when I take photographs, this line sometimes resonates with me in a slightly different way.
The more I shoot, the more I realize that the atmosphere that existed before me does not appear in the image exactly as I imagined. Once turned into a photograph, it looks somehow a little different.
Anyone who takes photographs has probably felt this frustration at least once. Yet even if beauty cannot be captured in a photograph, that does not mean the beauty before us has changed.
The desire to preserve something, and the feeling of being able to look more deeply precisely because it cannot be preserved. I believe both exist in the time we spend engaging with photography.
What appears in a photograph, and what does not.
I want to look closely at the small beauty that remains in between.
From the Journal
A photograph preserves not only what appears in it, but also a little of the atmosphere that was there and the presence it could not fully capture.
This month’s feature explores the texture created by scanning printed photographs. With the addition of the grain of paper, bleeding ink, and traces of light, a photograph rises beyond a mere record to become a tactile image.
To remember what was not captured, we look again at what was. We chose this article as a perspective that echoes this issue’s theme.
Memory Note
This month, one photograph by Stoneriver caught our eye in the cizucu community. It is an image that freezes a reflection in a window onto a flat surface. The scenery reflected in the glass seems to be there, yet cannot be touched. Through the camera, however, that fleeting image remains as a photograph, transformed into something that can be placed on a wall or a sheet of paper.
In a 2012 interview with The British News Digest, photographer Daido Moriyama said, “There is no quality without quantity.” If the camera is a tool for visually collecting the world, then a photograph must also preserve the vividness of the images encountered by the person taking it. The fleeting scene reflected in the window, and the creator’s unconscious response to it, may also be part of that collection.
The “beauty that cannot be captured in a photograph” Hiroto sang about also overlaps with our impulse to press the shutter despite facing something that can never be fully captured. We preserve what appears in order to remember what did not.
Taking photographs, putting them up, photographing them again. Through this repetition, images may gradually acquire a sense of touch.
Question of the Month
Question of the Month
“Because there is beauty that cannot be captured in a photograph”
Hiroto’s raspy voice singing those words sometimes suddenly plays back in my mind.
Even so, we press the shutter, hesitantly. Knowing that we cannot seal away the beauty before us exactly as it is, we still try to create, within a photograph, an opportunity to remember it later in our hearts.
What appears in a photograph is never everything.
And yet, photographs quietly remain, helping us remember what was not captured.
Next month, we will bring you another small story about what exists within photographs and what lies beyond them.
cizucu Editorial Team
cizucu Editorial Team