Above: Al ’Eizariya
(Bethany), East
Jerusalem.[photographing] people. If you photograph people,
all the time you are losing something; you are running
up to something that doesn’t exist any more. If you
photograph the landscape you are waiting: if the sun
is over there and the shadows are there, it might take
one hour to get there or three hours to get there.
It’s true that I’m photographing less and less
people. The reason is that I’ve been photographing
for over 50 years and, first of all, the world has
changed enormously, and I’m not trying to show
the differences, visual differences. And the visual
differences are enormous... T-shirts with all the
writing [on the front], with all the publicity everywhere.
So, I go to the places where these big visual changes
still didn’t happen. I still photograph, and try to find
some of these people who were not so much marked
by the changes that are happening in the world.
So, essentially, the world has changed, and I have
changed too – that’s the reason why I photograph
less and less people. I only photograph things that
have something to do with me, and I find less and less
people who I feel closely connected to now. In saying
that, I enormously respect my colleagues in Magnum
who photograph the contemporary world. I think, in
a way, it is easier for them because this is exactly
what I was doing when I started to photograph –
I photographed the contemporary world too. Maybe
if they’ve been photographing for 50 years, they
will change a little too.Are you glad you went to Israel?
I’m not sorry that I went there. Of course, you like
to take photographs and you like to play with whatever
is presented, but I really can’t say that it was enjoyable
to photograph what we saw. Of course, I’m happy
that I came.
Let’s put it this way... Where else can you find what
you find here? And it’s important to photograph. Like
most of the people, they said, “We know the place, but
we have never seen it.” So, if you succeed [in showing]
something like that, that’s not bad. A poet said to
me: “You made the invisible, visible. And most
of the Israelis, they try not to see it.”http://www.digitalcameraworld.com MARCH 2020 DIGITAL CAMERA^139
Josef Koudelka
Josef^ Koudelka/^MagnumPhotos“ The world has changed, and I have
changed too – that’s the reason why
XژȵǝȒɎȒǕȸƏȵǝǼƺɀɀƏȇƳǼƺɀɀȵƺȒȵǼƺٺ