We All Have Appointments With

One Has The Impression That Something Is Stirring Inside [photographs] - It Is As If One Can Hear Little Cries Of Despair, Gémissements De Désespoir... As If The Photographs Themselves Had A Memory And Were Remembering Us And How We, The Surviving, And Those Who Preceded Us, Once Were.

How Happily, Said Austerlitz, Have I Sat Over A Book In The Deepening Twilight Until I Could No Longer Make Out The Words And My Mind Began To Wander, And How Secure Have I Felt Seated At The Desk In My House In The Dark Night, Just Watching The Tip Of My Pencil In The Lamplight Following Its Shadow, As If Of Its Own Accord And With Perfect Fidelity, While That Shadow Moved Regularly From Left To Right, Line By Line, Over The Ruled Paper.

I Have Always Kept Ducks, Even As A Child, And The Colours Of Their Plumage, In Particular The Dark Green And Snow White, Seemed To Me The Only Possible Answer To The Questions That Are On My Mind.

At The Time I Could No More Believe My Eyes Than Now I Can Trust My Memory.

In My Photographic Work I Was Always Especially Entranced... By The Moment When The Shadows Of Reality, So To Speak, Emerge Out Of Nothing On The Exposed Paper, As Memories Do In The Middle Of The Night, Darkening Again If You Try To Cling To Them.