It Must Always Be Considered As Though

Pleasure Is Continually Disappointed, Reduced, Deflated, In Favor Of Strong, Noble Values: Truth, Death, Progress, Struggle, Joy, Etc. Its Victorious Rival Is Desire: We Are Always Being Told About Desire, Never About Pleasure.

The Photograph Is Violent: Not Because It Shows Violent Tings, But Because On Each Occasion (i)it Fills The Sight By Force(i), And Because In It Nothing Can Be Refused Or Transformed (that We Can Sometimes Call It Mild Does Not Contradict Its Violence: Many Say That Sugar Is Mild, But To Me Sugar Is Violent, And I Call It So).

All Those Young Photographers Who Are At Work In The World, Determined Upon The Capture Of Actuality, Do Not Know That They Are Agents Of Death.

One Day, Quite Some Time Ago, I Happened On A Photograph Of Napoleon’s Youngest Brother, Jerome, Taken In 1852. And I Realized Then, With An Amazement I Have Not Been Able To Lessen Since: ‘i Am Looking At Eyes That Looked At The Emperor.’ Sometimes I Would Mention This Amazement, But Since No One Seemed To Share It, Nor Even To Understand It (life Consists Of These Little Touches Of Solitude), I Forgot About It.

For Death Must Be Somewhere In A Society; If It Is No Longer (or Less Intensely) In Religion, It Must Be Elsewhere; Perhaps In This Image Which Produces Death While Trying To Preserve Life. Contemporary With The Withdrawal Of Rites, Photography May Correspond To The Intrusion, In Our Modern Society, Of An Asymbolic Death, Outside Of Religion, Outside Of Ritual, A Kind Of Abrupt Dive Into Literal Death.