Beautiful words about life and photography from Peter Turnley:
When I discuss photography, I often say it is not really much about cameras, which are a tool, and a necessary tool that I respect and use as well as possible.
Photography is at its‘ essence about the verb to share. We frame a moment that we want to hold onto for now, and for all time, to share with ourselves, and others, something we saw, felt, perceived, questioned, appreciated, or didn’t.
If we accept this premise, which I find difficult not to, then it would be much more important in terms of thinking about why we frame what we choose to include in our visual statements-and this has I believe all to do with who we are as a person, who we’d like to be, who we would not like to be, what we love, what we hate, what we want to know more about, a world we want to be part of, a world we are a part of, and possibly a world we wish that could be.
I began photographing daily life in Fort Wayne, Indiana when I was 16 years old, and it was just after the late sixties and I saw my home town through the eyes of a young person questioning everything, with curiosity, love, and determination.
I then moved to Paris and began to photograph with passion all that enlivened my senses with just about everything around me that felt like an immense liberation for my soul and ideas.
Eventually I traveled the world and photographed the realties of the human condition in over 90 countries of the world-often touching on moments of historic, geo-political change, tumult, conflict, and hardship-always life.
I continue to photograph worldwide, but spend much time daily photographing the life of my adopted city, Paris, now my home for 50 years.
When I walk-I see with freedom. I never have an editors voice in my mind, I never ask myself if a moment will illustrate a theme or prove a point. I walk, I see, I feel, and I respond as spontaneously as possible while respecting the world and life around me.
I responded to the moment seen today in this photograph. I don’t need to explain it. I don’t need to describe it. It is a photograph.
And with that-and with the marvelous freedom photography can offer, I make a small declaration and statement. And as we live together in the world-I didn’t do it alone.
With love.