Flickr: john43

INSPIRATIONS

I seek out places where it can happen more readily, such as deserts or mountains or solitary areas, or by myself with a seashell, and while I'm there get into states of mind where I'm more open than usual. I'm waiting, I'm listening. I go to those places and get myself ready through meditation. Through being quiet and willing to wait, I can begin to see the inner man and the essence of the subject in front of me... Watching the way the current moves a blade of grass - sometimes I've seen that happen and it has just turned me inside out
. -Minor White, "Interviews With Master Photographers : Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Cornell Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Yousuf Karsh, Arnold Newman, Lord Snowdon, Brett Weston" by James Danziger

What I think is so extraordinary about the photograph is that we have a piece of paper with this image adhered to it, etched on it, which interposes itself into the plane of time that we are actually in at that moment. Even if it comes from as far back as 150 years ago, or as recently as yesterday, or a minute before as a Polaroid color photograph, suddenly you bring it into your experience. You look at it, and all around the real world is humming, buzzing and moving, and yet in this little frame there is stillness that looks like the world. That connection, that collision, that interfacing, is one of the most astonishing things we can experience.
-Joel Meyerowitz

This is Zen in the art of photography. In discovering the universe, we discover ourselves.
-Robert Leverant from Zen in the Art of Photography

Minor White and Joel Meyerowitz quotes from PhotoQuotes.com.

THIS IS LONG BUT WORTH THE TIME IT TAKES TO READ IT. It reads a little odd because it is a google translation from italian.

From an interview with Olivier Föllmi published in the magazine Paths star No. 7. Interview by Gaëlle de la Brosse, with the complicity of Danielle Föllmi.

Paths of Stars - You've been in Asia 17 years, at a first going to Afghanistan. This trip has triggered in you two passions: photography and the Himalayas. Is this the love of the mountains, this desire to share that led you to this medium?

Olivier Föllmi - Yes, certainly. Initially, the peak of passion was the passion of myself. I thirst for conquest. I wanted to become a mountaineering guide and Asia has opened to another dimension, the human scale. In Europe, I ran after the challenge because the mountain is primarily a playground in the Himalayas, I lived in the land of life. And it is this life in the mountains that attracted me. The photograph then becomes a means to better understand my emotions,and above all to share. Upon my return, it allowed me to express myself because I'm always suspicious of language: words are limited to a vocabulary, and photography, like all art, is beyond them.

Paths of Stars – Does the photograph change your relationship to time and space?

Olivier Föllmi - For me, time in photography, has value only if one wants to witness a moment. I am not a photographer reporting or news or documentary. I do not travel with a look of an anthropologist: I do not want to show how people live; I try to reflect the intensity of a moment shared. And this intensity starts when the concept of time disappears. More time is too intense and less time is important. My photos are timeless. In the mountains, in the relation of man to nature, the perception of space is amended by the vastness of nature and the fragility of man. I love this relationship. And what touched me in the Himalayas, is the acceptance that there is something greater than oneself, that one can not dominate everything. Through photography, I want to highlight this dimension and I do it with the darkness and light. Contrast allows me to express symbolically the concept of smallness, isolation and fragility. So I learned to love this light, to deal with. Now, I always intended a trilogy. To photograph a landscape, I am positioned on a hillside, according to the desired angle. But this is not enough. When there is no good light, this scene will remain fine, but it will not be extraordinary. Suddenly, a ray of sunshine comes, and God becomes a result of that meeting. From a landscape previously inert, a light, which in itself did not exist prior to this to illuminate the tableau, and a look that comes at the right time. This is a matter of split second. The waiting phase is similar to meditation, where one forgets time and increasingly soaks up the spectacle before us, to be this beauty, to be there the moment it starts up. The timing of the click of the shutter is the pedestal of that moment. And when it freezes, nothing remains. The light disappears, the moment of excitement is over. It is like love: the emotion builds up and explodes, then falls. It takes her bag, it goes down, the serene heart, but with great inner peace. I love those moments. And that is why I photograph.

Trails of stars - but the mountain is not for you only a part of nature. Returning from an expedition, you said that you had then realized how much you love the "mountain people". And it is this harmony between man and nature so that you show in your photographic work. You well as you show the infinite plains and majestic mountains, you show the intimacy of a family in its tight tent around a candle. Is it not in this sense that your work gets away from the documentary to focus on drawing a ";human geography"?

Olivier Föllmi - A Tibetan maxim says: "What would be the light without the people who see it?" In the conquest of man I was, it is true that I became the man of this match. I like to mix with people of the Himalayas, even if our trade is simple. We talk about the health of horses, the grass that grows well this year, the snow that fell last winter, the height of the torrents. But behind this simplicity, there is great depth that lies in how they express themselves. It is the music of the words, and the intensity of the gaze of the narrator. That's what I try to go to photography. It is exactly like the landscape suddenly illuminated. A understanding sets in, an understanding that goes beyond mere verbal communication. And photography is a new catalyst. It captures the spark of being. Sometimes I have tears in his eyes when taking a picture,simply because of the intensity of exchange between that person that I looked at through the lens.

Paths of Stars - You mention, in the Horizon of the gods, that other maxim: "You have eyes to see the other, but you need a mirror to know yourself." Is the picture for you this mirror?

Olivier Föllmi - Everyone needs to know each other. I therefore seek to see through the eyes of others, to be in the eyes of others. While this sense is mirrored the picture goes beyond the eye. It is a way to approach the other and perceiving what lurks within him. For example, one day, I met a woman who spun wool into a corner, sad and abandoned. It touched me. The more time it took to photograph, the more it existed, until it became radiant. The picture is not a mirror, it is a catalyst of beauty, a way to smile at the other more than to look yourself. At that time, we are no longer self and the other is no longer himself. It is transcended by that moment when the mind communicates with the soul of the world. And when the person in front of you is involved in the photo, when you yourself are caught in the magic of this picture, this moment of communion transends so much time he becomes divine. The photo is a catalyst of energy, a prism, a diamond. The mirror is a reflection, so that the photo propels us further. It invites us to feel beautiful in the heart of others. It is characteristic of art: to achieve a state of grace, expressing what is not perceptible to the mind in daily life. This is the meaning of the greeting in Zanskar, when we join hands and that we bow. This gesture, made when you approach someone, means: "I worship the god in you."