40 contrasts, conceptual photography by Rasmus Rask Eriksen
1 You shoot perfect pictures?
2 The path of life is not a perfect straight line.
3 It's not a perfect curve.
4 A curve does not exist in its full power until contrasted with a straight line.
5 Nothing is anything by itself, only in relation to other things.
6 Life is not perfect.
7 Life is light and darkness.
8 Life is hunting opposite feelings.
9 Life is an indefinite explosion of opposites.
10 Whenever a situation in life develops to its extreme, it is bound to turn around and become the opposite.
11 Where there is darkness there shall be light. Where there is stillness there shall be dancing.
12 There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast
13 Even the most insane form of happiness and the purest form of beauty has its contrasts.
14 Sublime upon sublime scarcely present a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything, even the beautiful.
15 Contrast is what makes photography interesting.
16 In the photographs themselves there are indefinite contrasts between darks and lights, between figures and locations, between colors, between textures, between expressions and between intentions.
17 All photographs are worlds apart and ever so close.
18 Simultaneous contrasts are not just a curious optical phenomena, it is the heart of a photograph.
19 Within the widest concept of object, and specifically with the concept of individual objects, objects and phenomena stand in contrast with each other.
20 That's why you should portrait the combination of extremes -- why you should always portrait blacks against whites -- to highlight the contrasts.
21 Combine the extremes, and you will find the true centre.
22 You don't shoot life - you create it.
23 You don't take a photograph you create it.
24 There are always at least 2 human beings creating every image: The photographer and the observer.
25 All photographs can be accurate, but none of them is the truth.
26 A photograph is an optic created within an imaginarium.
27 A self-explanatory and explosive representation of a particular feeling and that feeling is again constituted by simultaneous contrasts -- constituted by en indefinite explosion of opposites.
28 By merely increasing or decreasing the amount of simultaneous contrast in any area of that explosion you can move the observer through the photograph.
29 The observer can -- by increasing or decreasing the amount of simultaneous contrast - move himself through a particular feeling -- his state of emergency.
30 Feelings are the most important element of a photograph, regardless of the photographic technique.
31 Feelings are why and how people navigate through life.
32 Life is a voyage through emotional landscapes.
33 It is about putting one's head, one's eye, one's voice and one's heart on the same axis when creating simultaneous contrasts.
34 And by doing so, holding the breath of the viewer within the temporary framework of these contrasts.
35 Portraying someone is just like feeling something, even if the meaning of that particular feeling is virtually unknown.
36 Portraying someone is just like getting to know someone
37 Even if that someone does not exist, even if that someone is not perfect
38 Even if that someone is merely a contrast in itself.
39 You shoot life
40 Because you hunt contrasts