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静宜 晨初 王心妍 译

晨初 静宜 校对

一张照片的重量是多少？这个问题就如同问“如何用电子秤测量光线”一样荒谬。然而，对于我们这些捕捉光线为生的人来说，光线有着的的确确的重量，它们意味着数以万计的负片、底片印样、放大片、摄影书等等。

从根本上说，我觉得摄影与纪录的行为之间有着密不可分的关系。在我离开房子，开车去往世界各地的旅途中，透过这辆本田奥德赛汽车的车灯，我看到了光线从无数个表面上反射下来。其中，有一些事物吸引着我——譬如，我们找到了密歇根州的一棵最粗壮的无花果树。我停下了车，选好位置，架上了相机。然而对于摄影来说，很多事物是无法用影像记录的，观看者们听不到鸟鸣声，也听不到农夫不情愿给我指路的暴躁口气，我缓慢的快门也无法准确地捕捉到在树干附近飞舞的蝴蝶。虽然无法看到这颗树的年轮，但从直觉来看，应该已经有两百多年的历史了。你看它的树皮！胶片的乳剂像雨中的毯子一般吸收着它斑驳形态的反射。在冲洗照片的过程中，这些反射又再次凝聚成了一种形态。这棵巨树，它以微型、扁平化的形态，静静地躺在我们的手掌之中。它并非是VR的虚拟形态，而是有着自身的重量：每一张底片的重量是0.6盎司。

这本书的项目最初的构思来源于我的一个愿望。我想要拍摄一位与众不同“巨人”：亚伯拉罕·林肯

1865年春天，一列火车载着林肯的尸体从华盛顿特区开往他的家乡伊利诺伊州的春田市。数以百万计的美国人围观哀悼了这辆送葬列车，以及林肯在棺柩中逐渐腐烂的尸体。当时，诗人沃尔特·惠特曼（Walt Whitman）是这些哀悼者中的一员。并在不久之后，惠特曼写下了一首长篇挽歌《当紫丁香最近在庭园中开放的时候》以此纪念林肯的离世：

“我将用什么样的图画装点这里的墙壁，

来装饰我所敬爱的人的永息的幽宅呢？”

（译者注：沃尔特·惠特曼 《当紫丁香最后在门后院开花时》）

出于面对美国正在走向分裂的哀悼之心，我便决定起身沿着林肯送葬列车的路线进行项目的拍摄。在拍摄了几张像样的照片之后，我开始意识到，如果仅仅把它当作一个项目来完成，这些照片看起来毫无生气。几番挣扎之后，我决定继续旅行，并将灵感的来源替换成了惠特曼的《大道之歌》：

“此时此刻，我向自己发号施令，摆脱束缚和想象中的界域……

从黑暗的禁锢中走出来！从屏幕后面走出来！”

（译者注：沃尔特·惠特曼 《大路之歌》）

在旅途过程中，有很多年轻人加入了我：我的实习生Molly、Cheryl和Alejandro，我曾经的学生Cooper，还有我的女儿Carmen。除了拍摄的工作之外，我还在旧货店和跳蚤市场上收集到了很多陌生人的照片。在洛杉矶，我遇到了一个按斤卖照片的摊贩……种种的冒险和途中的“宝藏”都让我回想起了自己最初爱上摄影时的感受，对我而言，摄影总是一个启程去流浪和冒险的最好借口。

当我回忆起这次路途，就像是经历了一场现实世界中的网络冲浪。我任由好奇心和自由的联想携带着，进入到一个又一个的浪潮之中。在纽约州北部的一个市场闲逛时，我看到了一罐蜂蜜。在那之后，我便不自觉地开始思考着关于蜂箱的问题：它们是否被涂成某种颜色以吸引蜜蜂？黑暗的蜂箱内部是不是就像我的大画幅相机的腔室一样？正当我自己还未琢磨透的时候，一个乘着拖拉机的养蜂人邀请我参观了他在林子后方的蜂巢。

除了这本书里闪光的视觉表达之外，对我而言，它们的背景故事也同样的具有意义。它们是关于我进入特定的环境，在短暂的（光、时间）和物理的（眼球、胶片）之间建立的一种联系。我希望这些层层累积的线索，能使读者们有更多的可能性来串联影像的意义。我想让这本书像蜂巢一样嗡嗡作响，但最后最重要的是那0.6盎司的蜂蜜。

How much does a photograph weigh? Nowadays this question sounds as absurd as measuring sunlight on a bathroom scale. But for those of us who've made a life out of recording light, there's mass to the amassing. Negatives, contact sheets, enlargements, books--a tonnage of reflections.

For me, photography is fundamentally tied to the physical act of recording. I leave the house and drive into the world. Through the lens of my Honda Odyssey, I watch light bounce off of a million surfaces. One of them catches my eye--the girthiest sycamore in Michigan, let's say. I park the van, pick my spot, and set up the camera. It's a simple tool and there's so much it can't record. We can't hear the birdsong nor the crabby farmer who reluctantly gave me directions. My slow shutter can't even catch the butterfly fluttering near the trunk. We might intuit the tree's two-hundred-year-old history, but we only see bark, not rings. But, oh, the bark! The film's emulsion soaks up its reflections like a blanket in the rain. Printing the picture, these reflections coalesce into a body. We hold the weight of a giant in the palm of our hand; flattened and miniaturized, yes, but not a VR genie. Each negative weighs .6 oz.

The photographs in this book were originally prompted by a desire to photograph a different giant: Abraham Lincoln. In the spring of 1865, a train carrying Lincoln's 6'4" corpse traveled from Washington, DC, to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. Millions of Americans viewed the funeral train, and Lincoln's rapidly decaying body. One of those mourners was Walt Whitman, who soon after penned his elegy "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." Midway through the poem, Whitman imagines decorating Lincoln's tomb:

And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,

To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

I began this project by traveling the route of the funeral train in an attempt to mourn the divisiveness in America. I took a handful of decent pictures, but as a project it felt lifeless.

I was looking for rings when I should have been paying attention to the bark. I decided to keep traveling, but as inspiration I replaced Whitman's elegy with his "Song of the Open Road":

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,

Going where I list [……]

Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!

Often I was joined by young people: my interns Molly, Cheryl, and Alejandro, my former student Cooper, my daughter Carmen. Along with taking my own pictures, I acquired other people's photos in thrift stores and flea markets. In Los Angeles I met a woman who sold photographs by the pound. These adventures and analog treasures reminded me of when I first fell in love with photography. The camera was an excuse to wander and dig.

My process is like web-surfing in the real world. The goal is to be carried by a wave of curiosity and free association. Visiting a market in upstate New York, I see a jar of honey. Later that day I find myself thinking about beekeeping boxes. Are they painted certain colors to attract the bees? Is the dark interior similar to the chamber of my large format camera? Before I know it a beekeeper is guiding me by tractor to his magnificent backwoods brood.

If the pictures in this book are about anything other than their shimmering surfaces, they are about the process of their own making. They are about going into the ecstatically specific world and creating a connection between the ephemeral (light, time) and the physical (eyeballs, film). These accumulated connections hopefully create constellations of possible meaning. I want this book to buzz like a hive. But in the end what matters most is the .6 oz tablespoon of honey.