Photography and Cinema

146

I began this book with a description of the Lumières’ 1895 film of the

French Congress of Photographic Societies disembarking from their boat.

I have watched it often, not in a cinema but on the very computer on

which this book was written. Each time I pressed ‘play’ I was reminded

of the different terms the English language has for viewing: one ‘goes to

see’ a film at the cinema; one ‘watches’ a film on a television or computer.

By contrast, there seems to be one basic word for our relation to photo-

graphs: looking. As I wrote I played the Lumière film on a loop from time

to time in the corner of the screen. At points repetition rendered it almost

abstract, but sometimes it seemed so fresh that I was compelled to watch

more intently. The switch in attitude brought back the days I spent as a

cinema usher in my youth. At first I would ‘see’ the film with everyone else.

Then, to keep my sanity in the subsequent screenings, I would invent ways

to watch, concentrating on the extras, looking for mistakes, scanning the

backgrounds, putting in earplugs, taking naps the better to half-dream it.

Over time the film changed from being quite ethereal and mirage-like to

something more domesticated and rather object-like. But I could never

rule out the possibility that it might change back again. By contrast, the

photographs that have fascinated me over the years felt very much like

objects when they were new to me, but now seem ever more virtual. Again,

I can never rule out their changing back. This does and does not have

something to do with technology. Images are transformed equally by the

means with which we view them and the moments in which we view them.

Books about photography and cinema so often end on a technical

note and it would be tempting to point to the ‘convergence of media’ or

Afterword