Éric Bouvet

While a clockmaker sees time in constant motion, a photographer brings time to a standstill, enjoying freedom and encountering limitations when doing so. The photographer is free to press the pause button on the world for the time it takes to capture an image. Restrictions come with technical requirements that need to be dealt with so as to visually encompass the scope of the earth. It may be the greatest job ever, but there is a price to pay, the price of bringing vast creative freedom to serve and provide documentary records of the human race. Such is the essence of photojournalism, and the aspiration is a source of wonderment, as well as a challenge, for in practice the world is never black and white, but a broad and subtle range of grays. Photographers hunting down pictures must first vanquish any feelings of fear, then reconcile two antithetical dimensions, their love of the world and the depiction of the world as it is. Contrast can be the goal, contrast in opposition or apposition with two mutually edifying elements. But which element is to be chosen?