Text de Raluca Antuca

Rodney Smith este unul dintre acei fotografi care redau povești direct din aparat, nu le compun într-un program de editare. Cu o pregătire minuțioasă dinainte, el știe sigur că nu va fi nevoie de modificări majore după ce va apăsa pe butonul de declanșare.

Cu o carieră de 45 de ani în domeniu, fotograful din New York a lansat o carte cu 175 dintre cele mai faimoase imagini color sau alb-negru. Amestec de sofisticare și suprarealism, fotografiile sunt cadre de poveste, în care modelele pozează perfect, iar decorul este ingenios.

Iar atunci când te gândești că acest cadru era întocmai și-n realitate, apreciezi mai mult simțul artistic al lui Rodney! Mai jos câteva fotografii și citate inspiraționale.

I guess one of my surprises has always been how I always seem to rule from the center. From the very beginning of my career to its present state: composition, scale, proportion, and relation have been the driving forces in my work. Composition in photography is like rhythm is in music. I am a product of an earlier era—for example, when the compositional senses of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, André Kertész, etc. were impeccable; everything was in the right place. I have noticed, as the world has become more casual, the sense of composition and relationship has been radically altered. I miss when it was the photographer’s mission to find order out of chaos.

Everyone needs and craves adulation and support, so to say I simply make something without consequences would be naive. I desire approval as much as the next person, but for all my life as a photographer, the purpose and function of making pictures has been to resolve deep personal issues within me. As my ex-father-in-law Robert Anderson once told me, “When you are speaking the most privately, you are speaking the most universally.” I completely believe this to be the case. Although the pictures come from deep wells of emotions within me, they seem to resonate with a much larger audience.

To try to speak the most privately; to expose my most intimate feelings, thoughts, and anxieties. That way I always know I am speaking the smallest, most private truth. If I can do that, if I can speak with a small truth, then that is the most a small person in a very large world can ever hope to do.