Stealing light
Leica’s beautiful short documentary is a meditation on the meaning of photography.
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Credits
powered by
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- Production Company BonusRun
- Director Parker Schmidt
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Credits
powered by
- Production Company BonusRun
- Director Parker Schmidt
- Editor James Dierx
Credits
powered by
- Production Company BonusRun
- Director Parker Schmidt
- Editor James Dierx
Photography is the skill, job, or process of producing photographs.” So claims Collins Dictionary in a rather workaday definition of the art.
Good old Wiki gets a little more interesting with “the practice of creating durable images by recording light.”
But Niki Byrne, in this thought-provoking film, produced by BonusRun Studios and directed by Parker Schmidt, describes it as: “capturing photons – stealing the physical light from a moment and transporting it through time.”
A screenwriter, film director, and helicopter pilot, multi-talented Byrne is inspired by the godfather of street photography Henri Cartier-Bresson, who described his first Leica, purchased in Marseille in the early 1930s as ‘the extension of my eye’.
He also described photography as the discovering of Decisive Moments and Byrne respectfully suggests a slight amendment; to ‘Moments’ plural, as once you start to see them, you see them everywhere.
She eloquently muses on what it is to be a photographer. Is it someone with a bag of lenses, a particular shooting style, trendy eyewear and a large collection of hats? Or someone who claims not to be a photographer, just an occasionally sentimental woman with a bad memory who wants to see certain things more than once.
All one needs to be a photographer, she says, “is a camera and to be paying attention”.
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