Jean Paul Sartre
[Writer and philosopher, b. 1905, Paris, d. 1980, Paris.]
Photographs are not ideas. They give us ideas.
Here I am, bent over the keyhole; suddenly I hear a footstep. I shudder as a wave of shame sweeps over me. Somebody has seen me.
There are photographers who push for war because they make stories. They search for a Chinese who has a more Chinese are than the others and they end up finding one. They have him take a typically Chinese pose and surround him with chinoiseries. What have they captured on their film? A Chinese? Definitely not: the idea of the Chinese.
Why, you’ve even stolen my face; you know it and I don’t!
