【Past Events of the Future】
"Feather-light press of the shutter, an extraordinary instant before my eyes is captured with a snap of my fingers. Within that one-thousandth of a second, Earth leaves behind the image it packed to go as it spins along its axis; or perhaps it was a temperate, memorable moment of the present being condensed into a singular frame. Yet, myths surrounding that “present” seem to be our most deeply-rooted misunderstanding of photography.
My fondest works of photography often tell of the rectangular world perceived by the camera’s viewfinder of some ongoing moment on this planet, usually just after or prior to the shutter button’s release. Discovered by the determined photographer’s razor-sharp eyes are the ripples in the wake of story fragments, or details to be yearned after in the future.
There is no present tense in the world of photography—its grammar underscores that moment when the past and the future collide, that wonderful process of blurring the divide between reason and emotion with time.
There exists no other language in this world in which concatenation of past and present tense is permitted, and yet a photograph tells its tale with such nonchalance. On wafer-thin photo paper, a fortuitous event of both the past and the future is deftly pieced together—like the preparation of paints on an artist’s palette or that of a mother’s delicate touch when braiding her daughter’s hair. With such devotion, affection, and selflessness, a photograph can ceremoniously record the fingerprints of time, hazy like moonlight, events of the future already satisfied…
It is my belief that no photo is able to elaborate on a story about the “now”, much like city maps that indicate neither the entrance nor the exit for curious eyes somehow."
- Simon Chang (English translation by Joan Wang)
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【關於未來的往事】
輕觸快門，彈指間截取眼前某個獨一無二的瞬間，那千分之一秒地球自轉時忘記打包帶走的畫面，或凝結當下某個帶有溫度並值得紀念的瞬間 - 關於那個 ”當下” 的迷思，似乎是我們對攝影最根深蒂固的誤解。
那些自己熱衷的攝影作品，通常講述的是快門釋放後或之前，地表上某個角落，透過相機觀景窗所見的那個長方形世界，執著的攝影者眼尖地發現了某段故事曾留下的波紋與未來將被懷念的細節。
攝影世界裡沒有現在式，攝影語法強調過去與未來相遇的剎那，理性與感性的分野頓時間被模糊了的奇妙過程。
世上也沒有任何一種語言其文法允許過去式與未來式併置。但一幅攝影作品卻可以如此瀟灑地說故事，就透過薄薄的一張相紙，輕巧地湊合了過去與未來的一樁喜事，像是畫家作畫時調色盤上顏料的配製，也如同母親溫柔的手指替女兒編辮子；如此隨心所致，深情而且無私，攝影作品行禮如儀捕捉了朦朧如月光般的時間指紋，那些關於未來的往事…
我相信沒有任何照片能夠闡述一個關於 “現在” 的故事，就像坊間的地圖也從來不替讀者標記一座城市出口與入口的位置
- 張 雍
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Peresno lahek premik zaslonke, neverjeten trenutek pred svojimi očmi ujamem s pritiskom prstov. V tisti tisočinki sekunde Zemlja za sabo pusti že pripravljeno podobo, medtem ko se sama vrti okoli svoje osi; ali pa je šlo za blag, nepozaben trenutek sedanjosti, zgoščen v eno samo podobo. Pa vendar se zdi, da je naše nerazumevanje fotografije najbolj globoko utemljeno v mitih, ki obkrožajo to »sedanjost«.
Moja najljubša fotografska dela velikokrat pripovedujejo o pravokotnem svetu, kot ga prikazuje objektiv fotoaparata, o nekem trenutku v teku, ki se ponavadi zgodi tik pred ali po pritisku sprožilca. Odločne in ostre oči fotografa razkrivajo posledice fragmentov zgodbe, ali detajle, k katerim lahko stremimo v prihodnosti.
V svetu fotografije ne poznamo sedanjika – njegova slovnica poudarja tisti trenutek, ko se preteklost in prihodnost križata, tisti čudoviti proces brisanja meja med razumom in čustvi skozi čas.
Na svetu ni drugega jezika, v katerem bi bila dovoljena združitev preteklika in prihodnjika, pa vendar fotografija svojo zgodbo govori s takšno brezbrižnostjo. Naključni dogodek preteklosti in prihodnosti je na skoraj prosojnem fotografskem papirju spretno sestavljen – kakor priprava barv, ki jih umetnik nameša na paleto ali materin nežni dotik, ko hčeri spleta lase. S takšno predanostjo, ljubeznijo in nesebičnostjo fotografija beleži že udejanjene dogodke prihodnosti, odtise časa, meglene kakor mesečina...
Osebno verjamem, da nobena fotografija ne more razložiti »trenutnega«, podobno kot zemljevidi mest, na katerih še tako radovende oči ne najdejo označenega ne vhoda ne izhoda."
- Simon Chang (Slovenski prevod by Hana Čeferin / Galerija Fotografija)
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* TAM-TAM's Street Gallery enters 2021 with an exhibition by documentary photographer Simon Chang, which was co-produced with the Photography Gallery. A series of color photographs on three canvases of Vegova Street in Ljubljana will be on view between 12 January and 8 February 2021.
https://tam-tam.si/simon-chang-pretekli-dogodki-prihodnosti/
https://galerijafotografija.si/artists/67-simon-chang/
